Tiziano Vecchiato, Anthony N. Malucchio and Cinzia Canali , Evaluation in Child and Family Services: Comparative Client and Program Perspectives

Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, Sept, 2004 by Victor Groza

Tiziano Vecchiato, Anthony N. Malucchio and Cinzia Canali (Eds), Evaluation in Child and Family Services: Comparative Client and Program Perspectives. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter, 2003. $49.95 hardcover, $24.95 papercover.

Evaluation of services and programs has become an increasing important component of professional behavior in the social and behavioral sciences. The training and emphasis on evaluation is fueled, in part, by professional ethics requiring practitioners to determine that interventions they are using are effective. It is also supported by increased requirements of accountability by public and private funders of services. While increasing accountability has been a general trend, it is particularly important during a time of scarce resources for social services. Practitioners and programs must demonstrate that services are effective and, in a climate of increased competition for funds, that they are also efficient.

This edited book by Vechhiato, Mulucchio and Canali offers a unique examination of evaluation issues from a global perspective in the domain of child and family services. Chapter 1 describes permanency policies and research in the United Kingdom. Drawing comparisons to polices and research in Sweden, the United States and Australia, it concludes that no cross-national comparisons can be adequately made because of conceptual and research methodological differences across countries. Chapter 2 offers an approach to evaluating foster care outcomes with various data approaches, drawing from studies in the United States. Chapter 3 presents preliminary results of a participatory action research project with multi-problem children in Italy. Recognizing that assessment is a cornerstone of good practice, Chapter 4 introduces a model for assessment and a preliminary process evaluation of the model in England. Chapter 5, also based in England, is a descriptive study of short-term foster care from the perspective of parents and social workers. Chapter 6 is an overview of program evaluation that links program objectives to evaluation, offering examples from family reunification programs in the United States. Chapter 7, drawing from the residential treatment experiences in the United States, summarizes the conceptual and empirical literature on group care and treatment in the U. S. Chapter 8 describes a participatory action project in England in the evaluation of parenting in family resource centers. Chapter 9, focusing on family support services in Australia, compares family and case worker data using qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Chapter 10 shifts the discussion back to frameworks used in evaluation, offering a model for thinking about outcome evaluation--one oriented towards children's rights. Chapter 11 provides practical step-by-step advice on working with agency staff in the planning and implementation of outcome evaluation, drawing from child welfare projects in the United States. Chapter 12 discusses the issues in Sweden around practice evaluation for practitioners while chapter 13 presents a project in Israel that was designed to teach workers to evaluate their practice.

The book offers an interesting amalgamation of approaches and ideas in evaluation. As a first attempt to begin a cross-national dialog, it succeeds in motivating the reader to think about the issues faced by the helping professions globally. The editors bring together many renowned scholars and distinguished practitioners from numerous countries with stimulating ideas. The writing is generally clear and unambiguous, which is itself quite remarkable given that authors are from several counties where English is not the first language. Even in English-speaking countries there are colloquial differences in writing and word meaning that could have been problematic in pulling together a book of this kind. The editors are commended on their accomplishment.

However, there are a few areas of concern about the book. First, and the most problematic, is that there are no commonalities across chapters. There are different programs using difference methodologies, different measures, and different conceptual frameworks. So much more could have been learned if there had been more uniformity. Instead, the reader is left with descriptions of various programs in various countries. This is helpful but so much more could have been done to globalize the issues in evaluation. Second, the book is Eurocentric and offers insights only from the more developed countries. There is so much going on in Eastern and Central Europe, Asia and Africa that was completely lacking in this dialog. This was disappointing but it offers an opportunity to expand the discussion in future projects. Finally, the studies in the book suffer from the same sampling, methodology and measurement problems that plagued much of evaluation research to date. This includes small, convenience samples, no comparison groups, and lack of valid and reliable measures, to name just a few issues. The reader would have hoped that this discourse would have offered innovation in any of these issues since we have so much to learn. In summary, for anyone interested in evaluation research from a global perspective, this is a good start. Even keeping in mind the limitations, there are lessons to be learned here that is worthy-of-note.