Evaluation by Clients: A Survey of Ex-Clients' Attitudes toward a Social Agency

Social agencies have long been tormented by the helpless feeling that comes upon being asked (by others or by themselves) for objective evidence of the value of their services. They are acutely aware of the lack of objective measures of results by which to justify their existence, their effects, their expenditures. As crusaders, their own convictions are grounded in an intuitive faith. But they operate in an increasingly materialistic culture which advances vexing practical questions while fingering the pursestrings. And sometimes even crusaders themselves experience shafts of doubt.