Program Evaluation: Marriage and Family Therapy, Essay Example

Population for Family Research

Program evaluations influence marriage and family therapy because it helps field leaders gain a greater understanding of both the successes and failures that have occurred in their attempts to train new professionals. Ultimately, there is a lot that a marriage and family therapist must learn before he or she should either enter into field or research practice, so these evaluations allow both students and professionals to determine the degree to which this learning was successful. If alterations are necessary so that learning can occur more completely or rapidly, the evaluations would detect the areas in which this is possible, contributing to a more effective program.

Since marriage and family therapists are considered to be experts in the field, they can help these evaluations by assisting the determination of pertinent questions. An evaluation is only helpful if it provides the program administrators with relevant feedback. Marriage and family therapists can help the evaluators target their questions and to determine the meaning of the results that they receive. Although counselors do not need to constantly participate in this process, they are helpful to consult at both the beginning and end phases for the purposes of evaluation design and interpretation. Therapists are a good resource to refer to for guidance to determine how the results of an evaluation can be used in practice.

References

Culver CE. (2011). Program Evaluation: Marriage And Family Therapy Programs’ Multicultural Competency Training. Retrieved from http://krex.k-            state.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2097/8556/RebeccaCulver2011.pdf?sequence=9