Plan for Evaluation of Marriage and Family Therapy Human Service Intervention
Human service is a field of study that aims to meet human beings’ needs by taking various measures. Furthermore, human services ensure that they improve human beings’ living standards by providing quality life to the populations. Therefore, the purpose of human services is to do away with the daily challenges in human life. Hence, there are several types of social services, including marriage and family therapy. Thus, the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy is one of the United States of America agencies. Therefore, over fifty thousand family therapists are represented by the agency in Canada and the United States. Thus, the professional interest of family and marriage therapists are promoted by the agency. Moreover, the agency targets married couples and use longitudinal and case-control study designs. Therefore, identifying the target behavior, intervention, sample population, measurement, and research designs is key to developing a good evaluation plan on marriage and family therapy human service intervention.
The Target Behavior
Marriage and therapy services are the services being evaluated, and it targets married couples and family members. Thus, the target behavior is the rampant divorce cases and family breakups due to misunderstanding. The human service being evaluated aims at combating marriage breakups and teach the target group how to handle family disagreements. Therefore, one of the roles of family therapy is to improve communication skills in different families. Thus, the family therapists aim to develop better strategies to ensure efficiency in the communication system for families (Blow and Karam 2017). Hence, some of the measures taken to ensure effective communication in families include advising children to take parents’ concerns seriously. Furthermore, family therapists recommend family members to listen carefully to avoid making mistakes.
Family and Marriage therapists advocate for respect in the marriage and families to ensure a peaceful co-existence among married couples and family members. According to the therapists, helping each other is one way of guaranteeing respect in Families and marriages. A sense of togetherness is developed when couples and family members assist each other when in need (Blow and Karam 2017). Furthermore, marriage and family therapy services enable family members to develop an attitude of gratitude. Therefore, the philosophy of appreciation creates room for unity in the family. Furthermore, family and marriage therapy services encourage married couples and family members to congratulate each other to let them know that they did a great job. Thus, the measures mentioned above are some of the steps taken by the services being evaluated to deal with the target behavior.
The human service being evaluated also aims at ensuring families and couples come up with proper methods of solving their problems. Hence, effective methods of solving issues help the therapists to deal with the target’s behaviors mentioned earlier. Therapists argue that setting boundaries is one way of coming up with a healthy relationship in marriages and families. Therefore, respect remains paramount even during an argument. Furthermore, the service being evaluated advocates for the concept of a win situation (Blow and Karam 2017). The concept focuses on ensuring everyone’s story is understood. Besides, marriage and family therapy services provide the target behavior addressed by finding the real issue and understanding each other.
The marriage and family therapy services being evaluated also teach couples and family members the steps and skills of handling disagreements. Therefore, human use encourages the target population to avoid making mistakes. Hence, reducing the rate of conflicts in families and marriages. Thus, the therapist’s human services aim at dealing with the target behavior like breakups because of disagreements in families and marriages.
The Intervention of Marriage and Family Therapy Services
Intervention is defined as the objective of the therapy services being analyzed. Therefore, discussion of the therapy services enables the researcher to explain the short-term goals of marriage and family therapists clearly. Therefore, there are several types of intervention, namely family system intervention, classical intervention, crisis intervention, and simple intervention. Every kind of intervention has its proper definition. A simple intervention is one of the types of interventions used by the service being evaluated to carry out its objectives discussed later in the research paper. A simple intervention is implemented by confronting an individual rather than a massive group of people (Yarhouse and Sells, 2017). Therefore, simple intervention focuses on warning an individual against certain activities. Thus, it is used by the therapists to warn couples and family members against actions that may bring forth disagreements.
Family system intervention is also another type of intervention used by the human service being analyzed to deal with disagreements and addictions in the family. Therapists encourage family members to use the approach to deal with drug addiction challenges by one of the family members (Yarhouse and Sells, 2017). However, therapists argue that the system cannot solve extreme family and marriage problems like break up and separation. Furthermore, the approach can be used by families struggling with conflicts co-dependence to build a peaceful co-existence among them.
The goals of marriage and family therapy services were discussed earlier. However, plans are different from the objectives. Goals are long terms of targets of any activity taking place. However, objectives are short term targets to achieve a particular action carried out in society. A good example is when a student attends school to change the world through new inventions. However, the objective of a learning institution may be to ensure the students attain good grades. Hence, the goals of marriage and family therapy services are slightly different from their objectives.
Ensuring mutual respect exists in families and marriages is one of the objectives of the therapy being evaluated. Therapists argue that both children and adults need consideration. Therefore, adults are warned against offending the children for no reason because respect is earned. Furthermore, therapy services encourage children to respect their elders. Hence, mutual respect is achieved in the family. Besides, consideration is also crucial in marriages. Therefore, therapists have set an objective to ensure couples have respect for each other.
Quality time in marriages and families is another objective of the service being evaluated. Therefore, healthy family and marriage relationships are built by having fun together. Thus, therapists encourage couples to create memories by spending quality time together. Watching television programs together are some of the activities that bring happiness to the family or marriage. Moreover, dancing together as a family or married couple also brings joy to the family. Thus, ensuring the family members and married couples have fun together is one of marriage and family therapists’ objectives.
Ensuring family members communicate the message of love to each other is another objective of the analyzed therapy services. Marriage and family therapists encourage family members to show and express their love to another member during better and hard times. Therefore, the message of love creates a sense of belonging and strengthens family unity. Furthermore, constant encouragement in family and marriage is another objective of the service being evaluated. Couples are required to encourage each other during hard times and find a solution to the problem together. Thus, embracing teamwork in the family and marriage. Therefore, those mentioned above are some of the objectives of the service being analyzed.
Sample and Population
A Sample is used in research to show how the whole looks like. Therefore, describing the study sample and population of the marriage and therapy services is vital to proper analysis. There are several samples, including systematic sampling, random sampling, convenience sampling, and cluster sampling. A random sample requires a listing of every name in the model. However, systematic sampling is different from the random selection because it requires no name listing.
Moreover, cluster sampling is achieved through the division of the samples into groups. Convenience sampling is regarded as the easiest sampling method. However, it is the most challenging sampling technique because it is only used with readily available data. Thus, describing the study sample and population is key to explaining the topic of therapy services.
Couples and families are the study samples and population of the marriage and family therapy services. Therefore, both the convenience sample and random samples are used in the marriage and therapy services evaluation. Convenience sampling is used because there is available data for families that have enjoyed therapy services. However, random sampling is only used in studying analyzing the marriage data because of the couples’ available list of names. According to the study sample, the general issue is a lack of ability to solve family and marriage disputes. Therefore, a scientific assumption that human beings are adapted to regular disagreement is used to defend the issue scientifically. Therefore, a convenience sampling method is used.
Measurement and Study Designs
Measuring the project progresses is vital in evaluating whether the set objectives or the goals have been met or in the process of being achieved. Therefore, it is essential to measure performance after providing therapy services to family members and married couples. Measuring therapy goals, how far the benefits have come, and measuring the remaining distance to the goals enables the therapists to evaluate their therapy services’ effectiveness.
The marital satisfaction scale is the tool that is used to evaluate the performance of the therapy services. Therefore, measuring the client’s behavior is key in determining the impacts of services on families and marriages. Hence, a marital satisfaction scale will be used to measure the performance. The marriage satisfaction scale is measured on a scale of 1-10 items. Thus, it means that ten marital satisfaction represents one of the relationships being examined by the therapists (Dizjani and Kharamin 2016). Therefore, Najib Ayub is the author of the marital scale, and the issue of family and marriage disputes is the issue to be measured in the scale.
The marital scale being used is a published scale. Therefore, it is an authorized scale to be used in the evaluation. Thus, the scale is measuring peaceful marriages and families after providing therapy services. Hence, the marital measuring scale being used aims to come up with proper evaluation or measurement of the target behavior after the provision of services.
Research designs are methodologies used to collect data, which is then used to analyze a particular project. Therefore, several types of study designs include descriptive research designs, correlational research designs, and experimental research designs. Thus, descriptive research includes giving descriptions about the target population to come up with a proper conclusion. Therefore, the plan will use illustrative study designs and use questionnaires to collect data about marriage and family therapy services. Thus, the target population needs to work on their ways of solving their disagreements to reduce family and marriage disputes. In conclusion, marriage and family therapy services play a significant role in combating family and marriage disputes. Hence, human therapy services should be encouraged.
References
Blow, A. J., & Karam, E. A. (2017). The therapist’s role in effective marriage and family therapy practice: The case for evidence-based therapists. Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research, 44(5), 716-723.
Dizjani, F., & Kharamin, S. (2016). Reality therapy effect on marital satisfaction and women’s quality of life. Armaghan Danesh, 21(2), 187-199.
Yarhouse, M. A., & Sells, J. N. (2017). Family therapies: A comprehensive Christian appraisal. InterVarsity Press.