MESA – Monitoring and Evaluation Instruments for Social Work in Schools
The ZHAW School of Social Work has developed MESA, a monitoring and evaluation tool for school social work. The tool gives school social workers and their superiors an efficient and structured way to ob-tain an overview of the provided services and to systematically evaluate what they offer. MESA is used in numerous communities in the cantons of Zurich, Basel-Country, Bern and St. Gallen.
Initial Situation
The tasks of school social workers are complex and multifaceted. In this context, professional service monitoring and evaluation are extremely important. MESA is a suitable tool for this purpose. It contains the three modules «Services», «School» and «Cooperation».
Question
«MESA Services» is a web-based software program. School social workers can use it for documenting what they offer. It provides an empirical basis with regard to the following questions:
- Service profile: What services do the school social workers provide in the various service areas?
- Usage profile: Who uses which school social work services and in what form?
- Problem profile: What problems is the school social work confronted with?
«MESA School» takes into account the teachers‘ view of the school social work. This provides answers to the following questions:
- How important is the offered school social work to the teachers?
- How do the teachers rate their experience with school social work?
- How satisfied are the teachers with what the school social work offers?
The school social work is conducted in close cooperation with not only the teachers, but also with school administrations, authorities and special departments. Here, the central questions are as follows:
- How do the surveyed individuals rate the cooperation with school social work to date?
- Which general concerns, criticisms or questions do those surveyed have in connection with what the school social work offers?
Objective
«MESA Services» provides an empirical basis for strategy discussions. It is used by school social workers for documenting key data (monitoring) and for case management.
The results generated by «MESA School» indicate the degree of acceptance of the school social work among the teachers and form an important basis for optimisation and further development of what is of-fered. «MESA Cooperation» also provides important information for the optimisation and further development of what is offered with regard to cooperation and interlinking
Methodology
The three MESA modules for monitoring and evaluating school social work are as follows:
- MESA Services: web-based software program to document services
- MESA School: online survey of teachers
- MESA Cooperation: telephone interviews of key persons
All modules can be purchased individually.
