Question Number: 435

Assignment 5.1Final ProjectFor your Final Project, you will apply the skills and approaches to program design and evaluation for human services programs to the homeless population in your community. If you are fortunate enough to live in a community where there is not a pressing homelessness problem, then select a community in a major city near your community, or one with which you are familiar.First, throughout the course you address the issue of homelessness by analyzing a single case study in your Discussions and Assignments: In the Week 1 Discussion, you describe the motivation for the program in the case study and examine whether the program meets the needs of clients. In the Week 2 Discussion, you identify the types of needs of the homeless and explain how the identification of those needs might influence responses to homelessness in the case study. In the Week 2 Assignment, you explain how perceptions of the needs of the homeless may be different than their real needs, and also consider why it is important to understand the accurate needs of the population. In the Week 3 Assignment, you develop a needs assessment for the case study. In the Week 4 Discussion, you consider evaluative tools to measure the effectiveness of human services delivery in the case study. In the Week 4 Assignment, you use a “logic model” to develop a program design and evaluation.While the Discussion Questions and Assignments are not meant to provide you with the content of your Final Project, they are meant to provide you with an opportunity to practice each piece of a successful Program Design and Evaluation Narrative to address the social problem of homelessness in your community. There is no specific template for a Program Design and Evaluation Narrative, but you should use the guidelines below to craft a single document package that addresses all of the elements of program design and evaluation covered in this course.With this in mind, to successfully complete this Final Project you must:Reflect on the program design and evaluation concepts and practices discussed throughout the course to complete a Program Design and Evaluation Narrative for the homeless population in your community. You should incorporate the feedback you received from your Instructor on the Assignments to refine and revise your Final Project before submitting it to your Instructor.As you finalize your Program Design and Evaluation Narrative, please do not cut and paste from each week’s separate components. The Assignment is to write an actual narrative that could potentially serve the homeless population in your specific community. Your narrative should be edited, seamless, and pertain to the homeless population in your community—not that of the case study.Your Program Design and Evaluation Narrative should include the logic model in chart form. The Final Project should be double spaced and APA formatted, use appropriate grammar and spelling, and include citations from the Learning Resources from the course as well as from your own research for the Final Project. Your Program Design and Evaluation Narrativemust include the following components: A description of your community, including background and demographic information on the homeless population in your community A description of the currently available human services programs offered for the homeless population in your community A description of the needs assessment you would implement to understand the motivations and needs of the homeless population in your community (include questions you might ask as part of this assessment) and to understand the effectiveness of the services offered (if more than one, then select one to use for this project) An outline of the data collection procedure you might use Explain whether the answers to the questions you created would elicit quantitative or qualitative results. Explain how the answers to these questions would inform an evaluation of the program. The motivations and normative, expressed, perceived, and relative needs of the homeless population in your community (use newspapers written by the homeless where possible) A logic model and evaluation strategies to deal with the homelessness problem in your community An explanation of the mission, goals, outcomes, and purpose of the program you would implement An explanation of how the program you designed would address social change in the communityNote: As you write the narrative, think about how your ideas evolved throughout the course: What have you learned about identifying needs and creating effective programs and program evaluations? Using your Discussion and Assignment responses as a launching point, your narrative should include the motivations, needs, needs assessment, mission, goals, outcomes, purpose, logic model, and evaluation strategies to deal with the homelessness problem in your community. The Final Project will be evaluated according to the indicators in the Final Project and Writing Rubric located in the Course Information area. Be sure that the Final Project is written using APA format. The need to evaluate in human servicesIntroductionSome human services organizations have been developed to address human needs. The human services professionals are advised to come up with goals and plans that can help solve human needs. The challenge has been time and costs involved in coming up with new programs and the increasing number of potential needs to be addressed. The human services professionals have a huge task to develop achievable goals and plans. Evaluation should be done to determine both the extent of the problem and the success of the program in implementing it. This paper will examine a case study of the evaluation of a program designed to help juvenile offenders. This work will also look into the purpose of evaluating the program and assess the importance of that evaluation.The case study selected is the co-location of health care services for homeless veterans. What motivated the development of the program is the need to have veterans access timely health care services by co-locating clinics in one house and ensuring there is adequate availability of services needed. After evaluating the program, it is evident that it did meet the needs of clients and stakeholders in many ways. The programs served many homeless veterans and help improve their access to health care and social services. The program nevertheless faced some challenges. Some plans and goals of the program were not fully implemented. An example is that management systems to assist veterans with acute diseases were unable to be implemented. It is suggested that each problem which may arise at the course of implementation of the program be dealt with and solved so that the program can be successful.The program designed to assist the juvenile offenders must capture all aspects of the case study program above. According to (Weiss,1998) evaluation report should outline the nature of the program and give necessary details.ConclusionHuman services professionals are supposed to evaluate to know if the programs are supposed to be existence and also suggest areas to be expanded and improved. In the case study selected, human services’ professionals were able to pass information concerning results and outcomes of the program. The program was able to realize most of its goals and plans despite the few challenges encountered. They were also able to recommend similar programs in other communities and ensured the target population’s needs are being achieved in the most efficient way.ReferencesHealthcare for the Homeless Information Resource Center. (2004). Health Care for theHomeless Grantee Profiles. Delmar, NY: PRAINC/HRSA.Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.Weiss, C. H. (1998). Evaluation: Methods for studying programs and policies (2nd ed.). UpperHawaii State being a place with the sun it is a good place for relaxation; this attracts more homeless people to the state. Although the exact number of homeless people in this state is not known, the number is approximate to be 6000 to 15000 people falling into homelessness at any given point annually. The normative needs in O'ahu in Hawaii State are that the homeless persons suffer more health challenges compared to other people and they experience high rates of premature deaths.Though there are set houses in Hawaii State the homeless community don't find it comfortable being there. They say the conditions are not conducive and also even the number of houses is far much less than the total number of homeless individuals. This is an expressive need.Most of the homeless population reported physical health care as the most important need. Both the old and young are more concerned about their health which according to the survey is at questionable states. Though other perceived needs as the need for the job by the youth were recorded in several surveys they number of did not emerge to be as large as those who are concerned with their health.Relative needs in this homeless community, first of all, are the food, shelter, and sanitation. In this homeless people in Hawaii people live in tents at the beaches which results to various infections from sunburns.The most important need of the above needs is the normative need in thee homeless people in Hawaii since the health conditions are cutting short the lives of the homeless people and also denying them chances of trying to make their lives better.ReferencesSuarez, T. M. (1996). Needs assessment. International Encyclopedia Teaching and Teacher Education.Moroney, R. (1986). Shared responsibility. New York: AldineModell, J. (1997). Housing the Homeless in Hawaii. Home in the islands: housing and social change in the Pacific, 194.Hawaii State being a place with the sun it is a good place for relaxation; this attracts more homeless people to the state. Although the exact number of homeless people in this state is not known, the number is approximate to be 6000 to 15000 people falling into homelessness at any given point annually. The normative needs in O'ahu in Hawaii State are that the homeless persons suffer more health challenges compared to other people and they experience high rates of premature deaths.Though there are set houses in Hawaii State the homeless community don't find it comfortable being there. They say the conditions are not conducive and also even the number of houses is far much less than the total number of homeless individuals. This is an expressive need.Most of the homeless population reported physical health care as the most important need. Both the old and young are more concerned about their health which according to the survey is at questionable states. Though other perceived needs as the need for the job by the youth were recorded in several surveys they number of did not emerge to be as large as those who are concerned with their health.Relative needs in this homeless community, first of all, are the food, shelter, and sanitation. In this homeless people in Hawaii people live in tents at the beaches which results to various infections from sunburns.The most important need of the above needs is the normative need in thee homeless people in Hawaii since the health conditions are cutting short the lives of the homeless people and also denying them chances of trying to make their lives better.ReferencesSuarez, T. M. (1996). Needs assessment. International Encyclopedia Teaching and Teacher Education.Moroney, R. (1986). Shared responsibility. New York: AldineModell, J. (1997). Housing the Homeless in Hawaii. Home in the islands: housing and social change in the IntroductionEvaluation of the program is usually done to in order to determine the quality of the program, how effective the program is and how the program is performing. This can help to know if the program is making a significant difference among the targeted people. It can also assist to know if the program is functioning or not. This paper therefore seeks to evaluate the program which is assisting the homeless people within the community.The two program evaluation questions are: what is the reach of the program? And what has been the impact of the program on the homeless people? The answers to these questions would elicit both qualitative and quantitative results. Therefore, the program evaluation will require both quantitative and qualitative data collection plan. This is because the use of mixed-method approach is convenient since the results and findings would be reliable (Creswell, 2017). After identifying the evaluation program questions, the next step will be to come up with plan of evaluating a program. The plan should consist of methods of collecting data, evidences, the person responsible and the duration.Program Evaluation QuestionEvidenceMethods and sources of collecting dataPerson in chargeDuration1.What is the reach of the program?Number of building materials distributedRecords of the program RobertOne month2.What has been the impact of the program on the homeless people? Number of people resettledNumber of people not yet resettledCommunity leadersProgram coordinatorsHomeless people JohnOne MonthAfter coming up with the plan, the instruments of data collection should be identified. These include: questionnaires, reviewing existing program records, interviews and observations. The use of these multiple instruments of collecting data is to ensure that the findings are reliable and valid. The data collected from different sources can allow for comparison of the findings.The key determinant of finding accurate program evaluation results lies with the approach used to answer the program evaluation questions. This important because the wrong approach used may not answer effectively the program evaluation questions. (McCusker & Gunaydin, 2015) compares the quantitative, qualitative and mixed-method approaches in program evaluation. The best approach is the one which combines both qualitative and quantitative approaches since it enables the program evaluator to obtain data from different many sources.The next step is to plan for analysis of findings after collecting the data. The qualitative results from the respondents will be analyzed so as to know the major arguments of the respondents. This is based on the responses during surveys and the responses filled in the questionnaires. In order to get the qualitative results, different responses will be statistically analyzed. This involves calculation of mean and percentages. Other statistical manipulation such as regression and variance analysis will be done. This can be done in order to determine the effect of one variable on another variable. Results will also be computed. The final step of program evaluation will be to interpret the quantitative and qualitative results. The results will then be interpreted to determine whether it answered the program evaluation questions.ConclusionProgram evaluation is an important activity that is undertaken to know whether the human services program is achieving its objectives or not. In order for the process to be meaningful, it should adopt an effective program evaluation approach. This will ensures that the process is successful the program evaluated. As indicated above, the program evaluators should apply the best approach during the evaluation.ReferencesCreswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2017), Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches: Sage publicationsMcCusker, K., & Gunaydin, S. (2015). Research using qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods and choice based on the research. Perfusion, 30(7), 537-542.