Human Services Delivery
Student’s Name
University

Table of Contents 1.0 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………..3 2.0 Practice Setting………………………………………………………………………….3 3.0 Identification & Analysis of objectives…………………………………………………..5 4.0 Innovative change to program…………………………………………………………...6 5.0 Research design……………………………………………………………………….....6 6.0 Study Sample………………………………………………………………………….....7 7.0 Ethical considerations…………………………………………………………………....7 8.0 Measuring client progress……………………………………………………………..…8 9.0 Threats to validity…………………………………………………………………..……9 10.0 Use of data from the evaluation…………………………………………………...….9 11.0 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………....10
References………………………………………………………………………………….…11

Human Services Program
1.0 Introduction Human services delivery refers to a broad and unique approach to meeting human needs and their respective objectives, Woodside & McClam (2002).According to Larson (2004), it requires the use of a unique interdisciplinary approach that mainly focuses on prevention and remediation of problems. The secret for a successful human services delivery is improving the quality of life by simply being committed, Gilbert (2008). This profession mainly improves service delivery systems by addressing quality, accountability, accessibility and coordination of stakeholders whose profession is services delivery, Finn (2000). Community support skills are must have prerequisites for professionals who have specialized in human services delivery. These essentials provide vivid descriptions of workers responsibilities, such responsibilities or roles are based on competencies. These include advocacy, empowerment of the participants and community networking. These skills in turn provide the trainers, policy makers and educators with a comprehensive action based plan for workforce development. According to Collins & Jerry (2005), the benefits of human services programs are mutual. To the trainers, families and consumers especially when all of them work together to promote membership, well-being and community empowerment. My objective in this paper, therefore, is to design and execute my evaluation of a human services program that is set to promote quality of life in a new framework within the human services field.
2.0 Practice setting where evaluation will take place, population served and programs My choice for a human services program will be a drug abuse prevention program, the profession itself or rather the professionals who will undertake this program are known as drug abuse counselors. I anticipate that the society will reap enormous benefits from this study program as drug addiction is increasingly becoming rampant, especially among teenagers and the youth. The situation is as such because most productive young people in the society have wasted themselves and their beautiful careers as a result of drug abuse. This program will, therefore, seek to formulate effective ways of counseling youths and empowering them with appropriate life skills. I anticipate that participants of this study will undergo rigorous training on ways to overcome drug abuse. The theme for this program will be “To empower the youth with skills and knowledge on the means of how to shun drug abuse and eventually be beneficial to the society”. The slogan will be “It is easier to put off drugs than to get off drugs”. The characters and behaviors for the study participants will carefully be monitored as they are crucial in assisting me in setting the parameters to be used to measure client progress. Evaluation of human services programs is increasingly becoming important, Bigby (2004). It is of the essence to know the objectives that a program will accomplish, the cost implications of undertaking a human services and how to achieve cost effectiveness following the implementation of the program. The drug abuse prevention program first will target an initial group of 200 youths; both male and female who have been adversely affected by drug abuse. These will act as the target population for this study. It is assumed that this experimental group will undergo training, mentorship, and counseling in a class setting for an initial period of one year. During this training sharing of life experiences will be critical in helping to determine what drugs they have used before. It is also assumed that prior, to the inception of this program, the trainers, educators and policy makers for this program will work jointly to set the objectives of this drug abuse prevention program. Evaluation of this program will be of two ways; first the progress made towards achieving the goals of this study will be done. Secondly evaluation will be in terms of how the program will change the study participants, have they reformed? And what benefits have they accrued from participating in this program. Evaluation will be critical in helping to determine the cost effectiveness of this program in terms of results achieved and the resources injected into this program. I will also carefully monitor the influence of independent variables on the dependent variable
3.0 Identification, analysis and evaluation of the main objectives of human service program The primary goals of this human services program will be: i. To empower the youth with life skills training that will help increase self-esteem and self-awareness. ii. To formulate ways of actually rehabilitating the young people from drug abuse through professional and medical counseling. iii. To investigate the reasons for drug abuse by the children. iv. To train and empower the youth with entrepreneurial skills. v. To determine avenues of forming a platform that will advocate and articulate the issues of the young persons to the authorities. vi. To transform the child. At the tails end of this study project. Evaluation or assessment of these objectives is to be done. The influence of the independent variables over the dependent variable will be assessed. This evaluation will be through measurement of progress made towards the achievement of objectives, through a collection of necessary data that suits the study parameters. The program will be considered successful only if all the goals are met. The assessment will be done through performance monitoring and impact evaluation. Outputs will be evaluated against inputs, and these objectives will be considered to be good only if progress is made towards their achievement matches with the aims themselves. Otherwise, the goals will be modified by making them short term. The implication for this is that perhaps after every three months this human services program will be subjected to performance and evaluation. As opposed to end of year evaluation
4.0 Innovative change to overall success rate of the program The program objectives need to have a shorter time frame for achievement, Bennington- Davis (2011). It means that evaluation and monitoring of progress will be done on cycles of three months as opposed to an extended period, say one year to conduct the assessment. According to Austin (2012), the benefit of this is that anything that may derail the progress of the program will be noted as early as possible and respective changes if any is done promptly. Again to improve the overall success rate, the participants of the program will benefit from incentives and gifts that will boost their morale and increase the chances of getting reliable first-hand information. Such incentives might include luncheons, free phone credit, gift vouchers, awards, and recognition. Individuals who earlier on had participated in a drug abuse prevention program and were will be brought on board as case studies and mentors. These I will treat as experts who will guide me in this throughout this study. I will also assure the participants that the findings of this study will be implemented when implemented the members will take full advantage as this program is truly a total lifestyle change program.
5.0 Research design The chosen research design will be a plan of how the required data will be collected, analyzed and processed. It will be a time activity based program. It means that I will have a schedule outlining all the tasks I will undertake and their respective time allocations. A survey research design will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of this program. According to Martin (2010), a survey design focuses on a few selected aspects of a given population. More emphasis is laid on the breadth and not the depth of a particular issue; this is with respect to the scope of the study. A few selected points, in this case, the 200 youths who have abused drugs will be used to represent the entire population. However, generalizations will be made from the outcomes of this study. The choice to use this design is because it cheaper and also because of the easier accessibility of information from multiple sources of evidence in different contexts. The induction will follow for purposes of making generalizations about drug abuse in the entire population.
6.0 Study Sample To get the study sample, which, in this case, is 200 youths? Clustered sampling will be used, due to the fact this number of young people who have abused drugs at one time or another will are not found in one locality. According to Sheppard (2004), cluster sampling is applied in regional or geographical sampling. A large area that is a representative of the entire population is divided into groups. A cluster is a zone or a region consisting of elements with similar characteristics, especially in terms of location. Predetermined boundaries such as administrative boundaries are used to subdivide the proposed area where the study will be undertaken. A few clusters are then picked to represent the entire population; this is dependent on the sample size required.
7.0 Ethical Considerations The participants might fear victimization or be put in the limelight, which, in the long run, might lead to them being discriminated within the society. To this end, these participants will be subjected to signing respondents’ consents forms. These forms will be in writing, and these participants will be assured of confidentiality prior to signing of these forms. Again it is the utmost duty of the researcher to act in good faith and not to reveal the details and names of these participants. Above all, to enhance anonymity, the respondents will not be required to give out their names in the data collection instruments, be they questionnaires, mailed surveys or even face to face interviews. Also to ensure that all participants furnish the researcher with reliable and truthful information, there will be incentives and gifts to be given to the respondents. Such incentives might be phone credit, gift vouchers or even a plan for offering free medical and professional counseling to them for a specified period. For purposes of data collection instruments, I will avoid sensitive words when I seek to find answers to questions to be used to acquire the information that is required.
8.0 Measuring client progress According to, Martin (2010), a measurement scale is a device for measuring magnitude or quantity of a variable. Scales may be graded. The data I will collect will be of both nominal data and ordinal or rank data.According to Sheppard(2004), the first type of data is for purposes of identification only and it is obtained from qualitative responses. On the other hand, ordinal data is data that is generated through ranking either in ascending or descending order. Ordinal data is used to compare and to contrast. Therefore, client progress will be measured through nominal scales and ordinal scales as the data suggests. According to Sheppard (2004), nominal data is set into categories that are mutually exhaustive and collectively exhaustive. Numbers are used as labels; the mathematical operations for these are frequencies, percentages, and modes. On the other hand, ordinal scales will be qualitative in nature, the levels will comprise of scales that will only allow ranking, and mathematical operations concerning median, quartile, and percentile.
9.0 Threats to Validity My research design being a survey, there are numerous threats to its validity. First the participants may furnish me with false information this will lead to a massive standard error when the statistical analysis is applied to the data. A massive standard error implies that my findings might not be a representative of the real phenomena of the subject under study. Secondly, the participants may be reluctant to filling in the survey instruments, more so when they will be questionnaires. This hesitation will make me consume a lot of time while conducting this study. Lastly, the survey instrument might not be cost effective as I have envisaged, if this happens, it means that I have to dig deeper into my pockets to fund the study.
10.0 Use of data from the evaluation The results that I will get from this assessment will enable me to formulate findings that are based on the objectives earlier highlighted, conclusion and recommendations. I will, therefore, implement the findings to deliver a high-quality human services program, in this case being drug abuse and prevention. The empirical information and the literature I have reviewed in this study have also increased my knowledge base concerning human services programs. I will apply this knowledge and information in my practice of drug abuse counselor, what I envisage to be. More importantly, this evaluation has also enabled me to understand the dynamics of human services delivery. Therefore, I will be an informed professional who will be delivering quality human services in line with what the client’s demands and solve the problem in general.
11.0 Conclusion Evaluation is primarily checking one’s progress towards the stated objectives; it helps one understand what the course to help achieve the goals is. Evaluation can either be in the form of process evaluation or cost assessments towards establishing the effectiveness of a program or project. During the assessment, frequent performance monitoring needs to be done as this will help avert any issue that may cripple a particular program. The evaluation also enhances one’s knowledge of the topic of study. Most importantly one needs to formulate best strategies when undertaking assessment; this is to help one understand the dynamics associated with individual programs. Lastly, evaluation is a useful tool for decision making.

References

Austin, D. (2012). Human services management organizational leadership in social work practice. New York: Columbia University Press.
Bennington-Davis, M. (2011). Destroying Sanctuary: The Crisis in Human Service Delivery Systems. PSYCHIATRIC SERVICES.
Bigby, C. (2004). Aging with a lifelong disability a guide to practice, program, and policy issues for human services professionals. London: Jessica Kingsley.
Collins, S., & Jerry, P. (2005). The Campus Alberta Applied Psychology Counseling Initiative: Web-Based Delivery of a Graduate Professional Training Program. Journal of Technology in Human Services, 99-119.
Finn, J. (2000). Human services online: A new arena for service delivery. New York: Haworth Press.
Gilbert, M. (2008). Cultural Relevance in the Delivery of Human Services. Negotiating Ethnicity, 39-48.
Larson, D. (2004). Intergenerational Literacy Programs as Potential Sites for Social Change. Journal of Progressive Human Services, 41-60.
Martin, J. (2010). Information communication technologies for human services education and delivery: Concepts and cases. Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference.
Sheppard, M. (2004). Appraising and using social research in the human services an introduction for social work and health professionals. London: Jessica Kingsley.
Woodside, M., & McClam, T. (2002). An introduction to human services (4th ed.). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.