Developing Providers’ Profiles for Evidence-based Practices M. A. Verdugo, L. E. Gómez, B. Arias, & P. Navas Institute on Community Integration (INICO). University of Salamanca (Spain) verdugo@usal.es; http://inico.usal.es/
40 35 Men
All Social Service Recipients Means
85 75 65 55 35 25 15 8%
6%
4%
2%
0%
2%
4%
6%
8%
38
Specif User 36
25
34
20
32
15
30
10
28
5
26
0
24
Rights
Emotional Interp. Material Social Personal Physical Wllbeing Relations Wellbeing Inclus Develop Wellbeing
Physical Wellbeing Emotional Wellbeing
Persons with sensory disabilities
260
20
40 35
4886
Elderly persons
Service 2
5291
Persons with intellectual disabilities 1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
Men
Service 3
20
Women 47
1
742
37
117
137
540
595
3007
Intellectual D.
0%
10%
5
3583 20%
30%
10
2194
1234
Elderly
15
486 187
Drug depend
40%
50%
60%
0 70%
80%
90% 100%
Elderly
Intellectual D.
Physical D.
Sensory D.
Drug-Dependences
Mental Health Problems
HIV/AIDS
Service 1
30
n
HIV/AIDS
Personal Development
Organization Means
1255
Persons with mental health problems
0
Social Inclusion
SelfDetermination
1148
Persons with physical disabilities
Sensory D.
Rights
22
226
Physical D.
Social Inclus
52
People with HIV/AIDS People with drug dependences
Mental Health
Self Determ
Material Wellbeing
Interpers. Relations
Percent
25
Providers’ profiles were developed by applying the GENCAT Scale (Verdugo, Arias, Gómez, & Schalock, 2008) to a representative sample of social service recipients within each organization. Quality of life-related personal outcomes were assessed by 758 professionals for 11,624 recipients of social services in 288 organizations from Catalonia (Spain). The GENCAT Scale is a questionnaire in which quality of life is assessed from an objective perspective. Evidences for its content and internal structure validity has been broadly provided (Verdugo, Arias, Gómez, & Schalock, 2010).
40
Organization Means (e.g., person with ID)
30
95
45
The goal of this poster consists in presenting provider’s profiles to help services develop and monitor evidencebased practices on quality of life-related personal outcomes. Personal outcomes are defined as the benefits to program recipients that are the result, directly or indirectly, of program activities, services, and supports. Personal outcomes were approached from a perspective based on recent work in the field of individualreferenced quality of life that focuses on the measurement of core quality of life domains. According to Schalock and Verdugo’s model (Schalock & Verdugo, 2002), these core quality of life domains are rights, interpersonal relations, self-determination, physical wellbeing, material wellbeing, social inclusion, emotional wellbeing, and personal development.
Group Means (e.g., persons with ID)
Women
105
Age
Human service organizations are currently facing a number of challenges such as: (a) a focus on quality strategies that enhance personal outcomes; and (b) increasing social and political expectations and requirements for service/support organizations to be effective in terms of outcomes, efficient in terms of resource allocation, and evidence-based. In this sense, evidence-based practices are practices that are based on current best evidence that is obtained from credible sources that used reliable and valid methods and based on a clearly articulated and empirically supported theory or rationale (Schalock, Verdugo, Gomez et al., in press).
Emotional Interp. Material Social Personal Physical Wllbeing Relations Wellbeing Inclus Develop Wellbeing
Self Determ
Social Inclus
Rights
Providers’ profiles are helpful for organizations’ staff to know quality of life domains in which the best scores are obtained and those that should be improved by implementing programmes, interventions or providing individualized supports. Suggestions and strategies were suggested to organizations in order to improve quality of life-related personal outcomes. In this way, evidence is now available in order stakeholders may guarantee they are using good methods to improve the quality of their services and being able to answer questions related to the rationale and effectiveness of interventions, services, and supports. Nevertheless, it is still necessary to go further and keep on working on the improvement of quality of life-related personal outcomes, and keep on assessing the achievements, and looking for and removing the obstacles.
Work on this poster was partially supported by a grant given to the Excellence Group of Research (GR197) by the Junta de Castilla y León (B.O.C. y L. de 27-4-09; Orden EDU/894/2009)') and the Science and Technology Ministry (R&D Projects, 2009)(PSI2009‐10953)