Evaluation in Canada’s Social Services

Progress, Rifts, and Challenges

Abstract

This article provides a brief retrospective on three major developments in evaluation within the social services sector over the last decade. These developments include the development of a performance measurement orientation in social service organizations, the growth of empowerment evaluation, and emerging capacity challenges that threaten the use of evaluation within the sector. The author argues that performance measurement has been a positive and necessary development for these organizations, but a new level of outcomes conceptualization is required. This new level is based upon creating community-level outcomes that aggregate data into a more systematic picture of social well-being in communities. Empowerment evaluation and investment in the organizational learning capacity of social service organizations are seen as complementary strategies that can help to further the growth of evaluation within social services.