In your role as a consultant who has been hired to evaluate a clinical mental health counseling program, you will describe the hypothetical program you will be planning to evaluate. Because this course project is a simulation, you will not actually be evaluating a program; instead, you will create a fictitious but plausible program with hypothetical stakeholders, clients, interventions, and measures. It may be similar to one in your community, or it may be one that you would like to design someday.

For this assignment in Unit 4, use the template linked in Resources to write an introduction and a description of the program to be evaluated, including the vision and mission, clinical interventions, stakeholders, and short- and long-term outcomes of the program. You will need to:

• Establish your research base for the program evaluation by reviewing published evaluations and relevant research. Critique how the research and the program evaluations inform the practices of similar programs. This is the basis of your literature review.
• Select, justify, and apply a model of evaluation you will use in your program evaluation.
• Describe your plan for needs assessment, including culturally sensitive strategies for conducting the assessment.
• Identify ethical standards that apply to program evaluations, and discuss how you will ensure they are met.

Requirements

To achieve a successful project experience and outcome, you must include the following sections for Part 1:

• Title Page.
• Introduction and Description of Program (approximately one page).
• Literature Review (approximately two pages).
• Program Evaluation Model Selected (approximately one page).
• Needs Assessment (approximately one page).
• Ethical and Evaluation Standards (approximately one page).
• References.

Additionally, your paper must:

• Be a total of 5–7 pages of text (excluding the title page and the references page).
• Include scholarly references to support your ideas about research on the kind of program you are evaluating (population, clinical focus, counseling approach), and program evaluation procedures (program evaluation model, needs assessment, ethical and cultural considerations).
• Be free from errors that detract from the message.
• Be written in third person.
• Use current APA style and formatting throughout.
• Be in Times New Roman, 12-point font.