PS450 Unit 9 Program Evaluation Paper Example

Counting What Case Management Changes: A PS450 Unit 9 Program Evaluation Paper

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

PS450: Case Management in Clinical Settings

Unit 9 Program Evaluation Paper

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The program, its figures and its clients are composite; the guide and reviews cited are real.

Why Evaluate

The program where I work has four case managers, including me, who serve about sixty clients, roughly half of them parents in the county's family treatment court. The program's funders ask each year what the case management positions accomplish. Until now our answer has been a count of contacts and referrals. That count tells us we were busy, not whether clients like Brandi, the mother whose year in the program I have followed this term, are better off because of us.

This paper proposes an evaluation that asks that question, using a logic model, research on what case management changes, and measures that the program can collect without a research budget.

A Logic Model

A logic model, in the guide most evaluators start from, draws the program's reasoning as a sequence of links: what goes in, what staff do, what those actions immediately produce, and what is supposed to change for clients soon, later and in the end (W. K. Kellogg Foundation, 2004). A logic model makes a program's assumptions visible so that each link can be checked.

For our case management, the resources are four case managers, a supervisor, vehicles and community partnerships. The activities are assessment, service planning, linkage, monitoring, advocacy and coordination with the court and child welfare. The outputs are completed assessments and plans, referrals made and contacts held. The short-term outcomes are linkage, meaning clients actually receive the services they were referred to, and retention in treatment. Intermediate outcomes include stable housing, employment, negative drug screens and, for court parents, progress toward reunification. The long-term outcomes are sustained recovery and children safely at home.

A count of referrals measures what case managers did; the logic model asks whether any of it reached the client.

What Research Says to Expect

Research helps set realistic targets. Vanderplasschen et al. (2007) found that case management for people with substance use problems improved linkage and retention fairly consistently, with weaker and less consistent effects on substance use itself. Ponka et al. (2020) systematically reviewed case management interventions for people who were homeless or vulnerably housed. They found that several models improved housing stability, and that some studies showed benefits for substance use and other outcomes, while effects on mental health and quality of life were less consistent.

Those findings shape our evaluation. We should expect to see the clearest effects on linkage, retention and housing, and we should not judge case management a failure if substance use outcomes change more slowly, since treatment, not case management alone, drives those.

Measures

Process measures check whether activities happen as intended. They include the percentage of clients with a completed assessment within fourteen days of intake, the percentage with a signed service plan within thirty days, the average number of face-to-face contacts per month, and the referral completion rate, meaning the share of referrals at which the client actually received the service within thirty days. The last measure matters most, because it tests the link between activity and linkage.

Outcome measures check whether clients are better off. They include retention in treatment at ninety and one hundred eighty days, the percentage of clients in stable housing at intake and at six months, the percentage employed at six months, the share of negative drug screens over time, and, for court parents, the percentage reaching unsupervised visits and reunification within twelve months. Each will be drawn from records the program and court already keep.

Satisfaction and experience measures capture the client's view. A short survey at three and six months will ask whether the case manager helped the client reach services, respected the client's choices and was available when needed. Twice a year, a staff member who does not work with the clients will interview a small group about which supports made a difference and which obstacles slowed them down.

Quality Assurance

Measures only matter if they lead to change. Each quarter, the supervisor will audit a random sample of five charts per case manager, checking that assessments include strengths, that plans contain measurable objectives in the client's words and that referrals are followed up. Results will be reviewed with the team, and one improvement target will be chosen each quarter, such as raising the referral completion rate for dental care, which was low last year because few dentists accept Medicaid.

Limits of the Evaluation

This evaluation has clear limits. Without a group of similar clients who went without our case management, it cannot show that clients did better because of case management rather than treatment, the court or their own efforts. Some outcomes, such as reunification, depend on decisions by judges and caseworkers that case managers do not control. Satisfaction surveys tend to be positive, especially when clients fear that criticism could affect their case, so the interviews will be conducted by someone outside the clinical team and reported without names. Small numbers also make yearly changes hard to interpret; a few clients with severe setbacks can move a percentage a long way.

These limits do not make the evaluation useless. They mean its results should be read as a way to find where the program is working and where it is not, rather than as proof of effectiveness. If the program later wants stronger evidence, it could compare outcomes with similar clients in a neighboring county without intensive case management.

Applying It to One Client

Brandi's record shows what the measures would capture. Her assessment and plan were completed on time. Of her twelve referrals, ten were completed within thirty days; the two that were not, for dental care and a job program, reflected service shortages, not her effort. She has remained in treatment for six months, moved into stable transitional housing, holds a job and has reached unsupervised weekend visits. Her satisfaction survey praised her peer coach and asked for evening hours. Her record would count as a success in this evaluation, and the two failed referrals would point to the system gaps the program should work on.

Conclusion

A logic model, grounded in research on what case management can change, gives our program a way to show funders and ourselves whether our work reaches clients. Process measures test the links, outcome measures test the results, and client feedback and chart audits turn the evaluation into a cycle of improvement.

References

Ponka, D., Agbata, E., Kendall, C., Stergiopoulos, V., Mendonca, O., Magwood, O., Saad, A., Larson, B., Sun, A. H., Arya, N., Hannigan, T., Thavorn, K., Andermann, A., Tugwell, P., & Pottie, K. (2020). The effectiveness of case management interventions for the homeless, vulnerably housed and persons with lived experience: A systematic review. PLOS ONE, 15(4), Article e0230896. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230896

Vanderplasschen, W., Wolf, J., Rapp, R. C., & Broekaert, E. (2007). Effectiveness of different models of case management for substance-abusing populations. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 39(1), 81-95. https://doi.org/10.1080/02791072.2007.10399867

W. K. Kellogg Foundation. (2004). Logic model development guide.