Issues in Developmental Disabilities Evaluation and Advocacy

摘要

The New Jersey Developmental Disabilities Council has prepared this booklet to help planning and service agencies and personnel in the developmental disabilities field to formulate and fulfill their roles with respect to evaluation and advocacy. Evaluation and advocacy are related in that both are relatively important concerns, both have received increased legislative attention, and each influences the quality and effectiveness of the other. Issues in evaluation and advocacy are the focus of the booklet. Evaluation issues include the challenge to justify human service programs, the legislative mandate, the use of computerized systems, system development, and the role of State developmental disabilities councils. With regard to advocacy, issues are the challenge to change the human service system to make it more responsive to an individual's needs, the legislative mandate, internal versus external approaches to advocacy, system development, and roles of professionals and State developmental disabilities councils. Bibliographies are provided at the end of the evaluation and advocacy sections of the booklet.