G Bocialetti

"Self-study" for human services agencies: managing a three-sided relationship.

This paper presents an alternative model for evaluating social service agencies. Traditional evaluation methods do not explicitly consider the hierarchical nature of the funder-agency relationship. This relationship powerfully affects both the process and outcomes of evaluation research. It has a large impact on the credibility and usefulness of the data to both funder and agency. The deficiencies of traditional evaluation methods can, in large measure, be traced to the lack of consideration given to the funder-agency relationship. Another evaluation method referred to as "self-study" avoids the deficiencies of traditional evaluation by coping explicitly with the funder-agency relationship in the evaluation process.