1. Practice evaluation

Theme 1: Complementary perspectives and methods on practice evaluation 

Many public services, especially social services, have characteristics which make it difficult to assess their success. The underlying problems of clients and clientsystems, be it drugs-, income- or social relations-related ones, may have persistent traits which can be fought against only in the long run and stepwise. Further on, the receivers and users of these services may vary so much that it makes no sense to talk about effective interventions in singular. 

At the same time all services are implicitly making a difference, so often it rather is a question of observing and formalizing the effect(s) than believing that there would not be those.

We welcome papers which address this problematic, either conceptually or empirically, delineating, critically discussing in which alternative, complementary ways results, performance and success can be observed.

Session Organizers:

Prof. Mansoor A. F. Kazi, The State University of New York, University at Buffalo
mkazibuffalo.edu

University Lecturer Tuija Kotiranta, University of Jyväskylä
tuija.kotirantajyu.fi

Prof. Mikko Mäntysaari, University of Jyväskylä
mikko.j.mantysaarijyu.fi