Assessment of user-satisfaction of the care received from the specialized teams of childhood and family care

Family intervention models in Child Welfare have change over time. Currently, the teams specialized in childhood and family care are responsible for providing quality service to their users, therefore, the evaluation of the... [ view full abstract ]

Family intervention models in Child Welfare have change over time. Currently, the teams specialized in childhood and family care are responsible for providing quality service to their users, therefore, the evaluation of the quality of these services through the measurement of user satisfaction is necessary. This work has three goals. Firstly, to know which persons are included in the interventions; secondly, to assess service user-perceived quality; and thirdly, to determine possible differences in satisfaction as a function of two relevant variables: the case plan assigned in the intervention and the family role carried out by the surveyed. Two hundred and twenty-five interviews were performed with people who were included in a total of 159 cases, who represent more than one half of the population of cases attended to in Tenerife. The assessment was made by means of an ad-hoc questionnaire specifically designed to assess satisfaction with the service, following the quality criteria of Setién y Sacanell (2003). This questionnaire includes questions with response scale of 1 to 5 and 1 to 10. Interviews were carried out by telephone by a person outside intervention. Then, data were analyzed using SPSS 15 and R statistical software. The main results indicate, on the one hand, a tendency to work with the entire family support network, adopting an ecological and systemic model. Regarding the second objective, results indicate high levels of user satisfaction with the service received. Score are high in all aspects evaluated with the interview. The positive attitude towards the family has been essential to obtain the cooperation of parents. This shows that family intervention conducted under the collaborative approach provides good results. Finally, it was found that there are no significant differences as a function of case plan and family role.

Keywords: child welfare; family intervention; quality assessment; user satisfaction; case plan