#11 Program Evaluator
By David Lasuertmer
Average Salary: $57,209
Job Outlook: Very good (16% growth rate within the next decade)
In the current job market, there is a high concern about efficiency and productivity to capitalize on human and financial resources. In the social services sector this is also true, although the desired result is to be able to provide better services to larger segments of the community. In an effort to achieve this goal, the position of program evaluator offers a career path that helps to monitor results of intervention and treatment plans. The job of program evaluator is not only one of the expanding opportunities in many social work sectors, but also ensures that services can continue to offer community care and employment. As a program evaluator, a large amount of work will be performed in an office setting. This will include a review of reports and status updates that are compared to the expected goals of a public health initiative. You will also need to generate your own documentation of the changes that you observe and suggest any possible changes that can streamline the structure and process of community programs.
The employment rate in the social work industry is above the national average, and this offers good job security as well as highly competitive wages. Evaluating services on an individual agency level can be empowering to service recipients and service providers and help to bring accountability to agencies. Program evaluations can help individual agencies identify problems within worker-client involvement, understand and improve services, provide a framework for the achievements of the workers, and being accountable. External and internal evaluations can help to focus on the appropriateness of social service agencies’ decisions, rather than just focusing on the compliance with regulations and laws. Some evaluators have only a bachelor’s degree with no special training. Yet some evaluations utilize Ph.D.’s from a specialized training program.
This article originally appeared on https://www.bestmswprograms.com/