Monitoring Practice on the Agency Level: An Application in a Residential Care Facility

Abstract

This article reports on one element of a monitoring system designed to respond to the information needs of practitioners in a residential care facility for children. The aim was to assess the children's situation regularly, to document the information, and to share it with other practitioners in the agency and with outside systems. The Child Behavior Checklist was used to describe the children's behavior each month. The data were processed by a computer program. Graphic and verbal monthly outputs were presented to the practitioners regarding each child and the facility's population as a whole. The article discusses the difficult balance between the possible benefits of such a system and the awareness of its limitations.