Many social work students dread taking research classes. They often view the courses as unnecessary to be a good social worker when, in fact, the opposite is true. How do you really know that your interventions are working, unless you evaluate them? As a social worker it is essential to identify in a quantifiable manner whether a treatment is helping the client or if it needs to be abandoned for another approach. In the past, social workers depended on recognizing a client’s progress through their own observations. Today, with a significant push both in the field of social work and among insurance companies to provide evidenced-based practice, social workers now are expected, more than ever, to evaluate their practice. Selecting the proper measurement/evaluation tool, based on the clients’ presenting concerns and treatment goals, will provide the evidence-based practice that is expected by the field.
For this Discussion, review this week’s Resources, including the course-specific case studies. Search the Mental Measures Yearbook database to identify potential scales that could be used to evaluate the treatment. Select one of the scales you identified and consider why it might be useful in evaluating treatment. Finally, think about the validity and reliability of that scale.
- Post a description of the scale you might use to evaluate treatment for the client in the case study you selected and explain why you selected that scale.
- Be sure to reference the case study you selected in your post.
- Finally, explain the validity and reliability of that scale.
Working With Immigrants and Refugees: The Case of Abdel
Abdel is a 40-year-old male, who was resettled as refugee in a major city on the East Coast. Abdel has a bachelor’s degree in theology from his home country and is fluent in English and four other languages. He fled his home country after being imprisoned and tortured for his political activism against an oppressive governmental regime. Prior to his resettlement, he spent 12 years living in a refugee camp in an African nation. Abdel was defined as a refugee by a United Nations affiliate within 6 months of arriving in the camp. He then waited 10 years before receiving word that he would be resettled to the United States and another 1½ years before arrangements were finalized…….
