Service Effectiveness

Entry #1: There are several examples of the different aspects of service effectiveness at my practicum. Headquarters operates on different levels, which means we have several different ways to evaluate our effectiveness. The first level that comes to mind when speaking about my practicum is our phone work. We answer the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, as well as a number of local lines, to help people in crisis. We keep record of all our calls, online chats, and walk ins (which all fall under the umbrella of volunteer phone counselor work), so we know exactly how many people call every month, how many times each person calls, and what the calls consisted of. My practicum also has a clinic for short-term behavioral therapy run by advanced

My field instructor, after all, is the manager of the counseling services in the organization. She makes sure there are people on the phones for every shift, works to recruit new volunteers for each of the three volunteer training sessions we hold every year, reviews our call logs, and helps us decompress after hard or confusing calls. I think a way that a social work manager could improve performance in this area, that is not happening currently, is to evaluate how effective our service truly is. In a broad sense, we know that the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is helpful to people. We also know that we make a positive impact in the lives of our callers because they will tell us at the end of the call, or call back later to thank us for our help. I think some form of statistic proof in the effectiveness of our specific call center would be beneficial, though. A survey is available for those who use online chat, where they can rate the chat and talk about what was helpful and what was not. Being able to implement something like that with phone calls might be able to motivate the volunteers even more, plus I believe it would work to our advantage in other areas of the agency, like being awarded grants. The way things operate currently could be improved by more focus from our social work manager, too. My field instructor is the most involved with the volunteer work, but she can also fall behind on things. I could see where adding someone who specifically works with the volunteer portion of the agency would improve effectiveness in the call room, but at the same time I do not think it is a life-or-death addition, and I know for a fact it is not financially feasible in real