In recent years collaborative working has moved from being an optional extra of public service practice to being a core competency for individuals and teams. Has this led to better outcomes for those who use services? How to understand and to measure these outcomes and demonstrate these to a variety of different audiences remains a significant challenge for many. This revised edition of this bestselling textbook includes the latest research findings and contains more tools, frameworks and international examples of best practice to aid practitioners to more effectively evaluate partnerships. Up-to-date research evidence is presented in a practical and helpful way, making this an essential resource for students.

Published in association with Community Care This book provides an introduction to evaluation, outcomes and partnerships, summarising recent trends in policy and research, setting out useful frameworks and approaches and aiding policy makers and practitioners to more effectively evaluate partnerships.

Recent years have seen a shift in health care and social work that has moved collaborative work to the center of everyday practice. But has that change led to better outcomes for the people who use these social services? Evaluating Outcomes in Health and Social Care takes up that question--as well as the crucial underlying question of how best to measure those outcomes. This new edition brings the book fully up to date with the latest research findings and offers more tools, frameworks, and international examples of best practices to aid practitioners as they evaluate partnerships.

Joint working is recognised as the most effective way of improving social care and the government's aim to provide a seamless service of care. Written by an experienced director of social services, this text provides a detailed introduction to joint working.

Evaluating Improvement and Implementation for Health describes modern evaluation methods in healthcare and policymaking, and challenges some of the assumptions of the evidence based healthcare movement: Are innovations always an improvement? Are they always worth it? Can they be implemented? More importantly, should they be implemented? These are questions with practical consequences and questions which evaluation can answer - if we choose the right methods. This book will help you do just that - match the right evaluation method to the questions being asked. Pragmatic, even-handed and accessible, Evaluating Improvement and Implementation for Health provides an overview of the many different evaluation perspectives and methods used in the health sector. Suitable for health practitioners, managers, policy advisers, and researchers, its practical and multidisciplinary approach shows how to ensure that evaluation results in action. "This book is to be welcomed for its wide ranging introduction to the many approaches to evaluation." Carolyn M ClancyFormer Director, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) "For anyone looking for a readable and complete introduction to evaluation, the search ends here. This book gives an overview of evaluation in action for making better decisions about how to improve health outcomes for individuals, communities, and nations. The emphasis on including assessments of implementation is refreshing and the examples throughout the book illuminate the concepts and pique the reader's curiosity right to the end." Dean L. Fixsen, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Senior Scientist, & Co-Director, National Implementation Research Network, USA

This book is the product of 30 years of experience with program evalua tion. During this time, both service recipients and educational and social programs have experienced major cultural and political shifts in service delivery philosophy, including a focus on quality, mainstreaming, deinsti tutionalization, community inclusion, and an emphasis on measurable outcomes. Recently stakeholders of these programs have demanded more than just the provision of service, forcing program administrators to evalu ate their programs' effectiveness and efficiency. The "era of accoun tability" is here, and my major goal in writing this book is to help current and future program administrators understand that they need to look beyond simply the provision of service. Indeed, they need to be competent in outcome-based evaluation, which I define as a type of program evaluation that uses valued and objective person-referenced outcomes to analyze a program's effectiveness, impact or benefit-cost. By design, this book can be read from the perspective of a consumer or producer of outcome-based evaluation. As a consumer, the reader will be introduced to the various techniques used in outcome-based evaluation and how to interpret data from outcome-based evaluation analyses. As a producer, the reader will be instructed in how to do outcome-based evalu ation analyses, along with how to use and act on their results. For both the consumer and producer, two questions should guide the use of outcome based evaluation.