Developing Alternative Methodologies for Assessing Social Services Needs and Resources. Volume II

摘要

Needs and resource assessment methodologies are the subject of this second volume of a two - volume report that was prepared to aid States in social service planning and programming. Three variations of surveying the risk population in needs assessment are described. They involve the use of a questionnaire to collect data from individuals in community - based care facilities and from facility staff members, a mail - out questionnaire, and an unstructured interview guide that contains open - ended questions and relies on the interviewing skills of the person collecting data. The basic methodology for assessing the resources of public social service agencies is designed to provide the minimum amount of required data through work sheets covering the agency budget, purchased services, service - vendor payments, service staff, and service facilities. Two optional methods that can be added to this basic approach relate to the type of information obtained from workers about service provision which include a service worker time study and a service product analysis. Tools and guidelines for a total social service resource assessment are presented, and resource assessment instruments for private and public agencies and programs, facilities, groups and organizations, and individual service providers are detailed. Accompanying the description of the methodologies are procedures for tabulating and analyzing data and estimates of the time involved. Sources of data consulted in the study of the various methodologies are listed in an appendix.