Making informed decisions is the essential beginning to any successful development project. Before the project even begins, you can use needs assessment approaches to guide your decisions. This book is filled with practical strategies that can help you define the desired results and select the most appropriate activities for achieving them.

This practical guide to conducting needs assessments provides: coverage of several approaches for analysig data; a balanced description of qualitative and quantitative methodologies; multiple case studies and examples.

How do pastors, chaplains, and caregivers assess the spiritual well-being and needs of the people they minister to? George Fitchett presents a model for spiritual assessment that he and his colleagues developed, illustrated with case studies. He reviews a number of other models and provides a six-part framework for evaluating them. Pastoral caregivers find that the effectiveness of their ministry is enhanced when they are able accurately to identify problem areas and needs in the spiritual lives of the people with whom they work. This book addresses many of the questions pastoral caregivers have raised about this timely topic and provides an informed and balanced approach for making decisions about spiritual assessment models and tools. George Fitchett is associate professor and director of research and spiritual assessment in the Department of Religion, Health, and Human Values at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center, Chicago.

The new edition of this award winning text helps address the increased pressure that the NCLEX and other certification exams are placing on nursing students and faculty. The Nurse Educator’s Guide to Assessing Learning Outcomes, 2nd Edition guides classroom educators through the process of developing effective classroom exams and individual test items.

Provides K-12 classroom teachers with strategies for measuring student mastery beyond paper and pencil tests and suggests ways to diagnose learning and inform interventions in an accountable and reliable way. Included are vignettes and visual elements to help illustrate and apply the concepts.

The stress that comes with being a first responder has been known to lead to depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and suicide. However, few clinicians are informed about these health concerns and how to adequately treat them in this population. Therefore, there is an urgent need for practitioners to understand the latest information regarding treatments that will be useful to this specific population. Mental Health Intervention and Treatment of First Responders and Emergency Workers is an essential reference source that focuses on the latest research for diagnosing and treating mental health issues experienced by emergency personnel and seeks to generate awareness and inform clinicians about the unique circumstances encountered by these professionals. While highlighting topics including anxiety disorders and stress management, this book is ideally designed for clinicians, therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, practitioners, medical professionals, EMTs, law enforcement, fire departments, military, academicians, researchers, policymakers, and students seeking current research on psychological therapy methods regarding first responders.

The second edition of the Impact Evaluation in Practice handbook is a comprehensive and accessible introduction to impact evaluation for policy makers and development practitioners. First published in 2011, it has been used widely across the development and academic communities. The book incorporates real-world examples to present practical guidelines for designing and implementing impact evaluations. Readers will gain an understanding of impact evaluations and the best ways to use them to design evidence-based policies and programs. The updated version covers the newest techniques for evaluating programs and includes state-of-the-art implementation advice, as well as an expanded set of examples and case studies that draw on recent development challenges. It also includes new material on research ethics and partnerships to conduct impact evaluation. The handbook is divided into four sections: Part One discusses what to evaluate and why; Part Two presents the main impact evaluation methods; Part Three addresses how to manage impact evaluations; Part Four reviews impact evaluation sampling and data collection. Case studies illustrate different applications of impact evaluations. The book links to complementary instructional material available online, including an applied case as well as questions and answers. The updated second edition will be a valuable resource for the international development community, universities, and policy makers looking to build better evidence around what works in development.

The assessment of needs and the process of planning care are central issues in modern social work practice. Skilled assessment of client needs and strengths is essential to effective planning and efficient provision of quality social work services including both counselling and personal care. The focus of this book is on the development of the skills required at each stage of the social work process: assessment, care planning, implementation and evaluation. Throughout the book a balance is maintained between the focus on client involvement and the role of the social worker in an agency. The latter part of the book addresses practical issues in developing new approaches to assessment and care planning: primary workers, individual support and managing change. Social work practitioners, managers and trainers and students on qualifying and pre-qualifying training will find this an invaluable aid to the development of sound and yet creative practice.

What assistance do disaster-affected communities need? This book guides humanitarian field staff in answering this vital question during the early days and weeks following a disaster, when timely and competent assessment is crucial for enabling informed decision making. Needs assessment is essential for program planning, monitoring and evaluation. In an emergency response, however, a quick and simple approach to needs assessment may be the only practical possibility--in other words, it needs to be "good enough". This guide does not explain every activity needed to carry out an assessment, but it describes the assessment process and provides a step-by-step guide through the process. It also contains a number of tools and resources that may be helpful when planning or carrying out humanitarian needs assessments. This guide is essential reading for field staff carrying out assessments after a humanitarian crisis; it should also be read by humanitarian policy makers, students, lecturers and researchers.

Written for professionals involved in the assessment of children in need, this book is a comprehensive guide to recent developments in research and practice. It looks at the policy framework for assessment, the actual process of assessment, how to assess the developmental needs of children and how to assess their parents' and family's capacity to meet those needs. The contributors are experts from a range of fields and the guide, which was developed by the NSPCC and is published in association with them, is designed to facilitate productive joint agency work. Key topics covered include: * ecological perspectives on the child and the family * attachment theory and child development * assessing families where the parents have a learning disability * working with children and families from minority ethnic groups * the effect of sexual abuse within the family on the assessment process * assessment prior to birth. Originally commissioned by the Department of Health, and outlining the developments and theory underpinning their Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and their Families this book will be essential reading for qualified and trainee social workers and those completing the Post Qualifying Award in Child Care. It will also be an indispensable guide for psychologists, teachers, health visitors, and any other professionals and qualifying professionals involved in the assessment of children in need.