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Coping with accountability and evaluation: Some guidelines for supervisors of direct service staff

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Abstract

In an age of increasing demands for professionalism and consumer accountability, social service agencies must rely heavily on competent evaluation of direct interventive services to provide empirical and verifiable data on client outcomes and program impact. Since the individual front line staff member is primarily responsible for evaluation of interventions, the supervisory role emerges as a critical factor to insure the competence and accuracy of this self-assessment. This discussion, therefore, provides basic guidelines for supervisors to assess the evaluative competence of staff and offers specific suggestions about what questions to ask and how to explore staff's motivations and methods of self-assessment.

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Eldridge, W.D. Coping with accountability and evaluation: Some guidelines for supervisors of direct service staff. Administration in Mental Health 11, 195–204 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00819531

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