Sessio 10 / 2021
SESSION 10: Effectiveness of social work and wellbeing services & Measurement and study designs of effectiveness research
Chair: Elisa Tiilikainen (UEF)
A scoping review on the parenting practices of families with a refugee background living in Finland; implications for family integration and provision of appropriate community services.
Natalie Joubert
University of Eastern Finland
The past decades have seen an increase in human migration worldwide with an increase in forced migrations. The latter has become one of the most significant global challenges of our time. Migration of refugees has brought unforeseen challenges to Finland in relation to government policies and social systems. Refugees are particularly vulnerable because of the circumstances surrounding their migration, which are often violent. Their situations are made more complex by cultural and societal differences and differences between their country of origin and the host country. Settling in a new country as a refugee presents both opportunities and challenges. While benefiting from the physical security offered by the host country the challenges of differences in social identity, family-structure and community roles emerge. The family unit is crucial to successful integration into the educational system, the workforce and society in the host country.
Objectives
The scoping review addressed the issue of opportunities and obstacles for participatory, active citizenship of migrant families living in Finland. It explored the positive and negative aspects of parenting of migrants through the lens of their lived experience in Finland.
Methodology
The review asked the question ‘What are the formal and informal service needs of multicultural and migrant parents living in Finland?’ It interrogated relevant databases for peer reviewed literature together with grey literature sources. Arksey and O’Malley’s (2005) recommended method for undertaking a scoping literature review was implemented and provided a structured framework for narrative analysis of available evidence (Arksey & O’Malley, 2005).
Conclusion and impact
The review provides a thematic analysis of the complex individual, group and system needs of refugee and migrant parents and their children living in Finland. The results describe and suggest practice and policy directives effective in responding to their social, health and mental health care needs.
The dilemma of social impact measurement in social enterprises
Outi Vehka-aho
Tampere University, Faculty of Management and Business
Social enterprises are enterprises that aim to achieve a societal mission through the means of profitable business. As their operations are mission based, also the measurement of their success leans towards understanding the impact that they have on society. This impact is often framed as social impact and has been considered as one of the most intangible and difficult to measure aspects of different organisations. The objective of this research is to examine the literature of social impact measurement in social enterprises and identify key concerns. It answers to the question of how social impact measurement is problematized in social enterprise literature. This overview of the previous literature furthers our ability to understand the complexity of social impact measurement and the special circumstances related to social enterprises regarding completing such processes.
Key issues identified from the discussion are threefold. Firstly, social enterprises prioritise social impact as the keyway to understand their operations. This means that the enterprises place an emphasis on their societal mission, while it might make their operations harder to measure. Secondly, understanding and communicating their social impact is vital for these enterprises to be able to demonstrate the societal change they are part of, but also to attract funding and gain organisational legitimacy. However thirdly, social enterprises are often struggling with finding accurate measures, collecting representative data and communicating their true social impact efficiently to different stakeholders. By identifying key issues related to social impact measurement in social enterprises this study contributes to demonstrating the multiple points of view related to the phenomenon. The presented frictions also show that there is a continuous need for further research on identifying the complexity of social impact measurement and providing new avenues for improving the practices concerning it.
Real effectiveness and data governance
Petteri Mussalo
TietoEVRY Oyj
Effectiveness, efficacy and efficiency mean the effects of the interventions from different angles. As a relatively new term, the concept of real effectiveness refers to the ability of a service system to help a patient or customer. Unlike the experimental setups, the organisation can assess real efficacy continuously and compare results with other actors. Comparison requires, in addition to shared metrics and semantically consistent data, and shared understanding about the data used. (Malmivaara, 2013).
Systematic data management is the first prerequisite for high-quality data use, comprehensive statistics, and reliable analysis. Advances in technology have led to an explosive increase in the amount of data available. Improving data availability and data quality will increase data usage. The expanding user base requires broader, more diverse, and well-accessible descriptions of information.
DAMA defines data governance (DG) as “the exercise of authority and control (planning, monitoring, and enforcement) over the management of data assets” (DAMA International 2017, p67). As part of DG, the data asset descriptions, data catalogues (DC) make it easier to find and interpret information. A significant advantage of harmonised material descriptions is the substantial acceleration in the execution of information requests. DCs act as interpreter between data consumer and provider. Comprehensive DCs help to omit several superfluous data delivery iterations.
Assessing the effectiveness of data management- the quality of the data in all its dimensions, the lead times and the number of iterations required, the need for corrections, and the traceability of the data- serves the entire management and research community. Researchers and institutions should assess and report data management effectiveness.
DAMA International: DAMA-DMBOK : Data management body of knowledge. 2nd edition. ed. Technics Publications, USA 2017
Malmivaara A., Real-Effectiveness Medicine – pursuing the best effectiveness in the ordinary care of patients. Annals of Medicine 2013;45:103–106.
Can effectiveness really be ‘measured’ in health and social care?
Neill Booth
Tampere University
Purpose
‘Measuring effectiveness’ (suomeksi: ‘vaikuttavuuden mittaaminen’) is often advocated, but the concept seems to lack clear definition. This study aims to clarify some of the Finnish and English terminology related to ‘measuring effectiveness’, investigating attempts to implement ‘value-based care’ and undertake effectiveness research. The research question asks if robust examples of ‘measuring’ effectiveness in health and social care can be found in Finland?
Data and methods
A number of search techniques, including bi-directional citation searching, were used to obtain evidence relating to the research question from the methodological literature. This review also includes examples highlighting the potential of, and problems associated with, ‘measuring’ effectiveness.
Results
There seem to be at least three prerequisites necessary for ‘measuring’ effectiveness: 1) use of a suitable indicator covering one or more dimensions of effectiveness, 2) fairly complete and uniform recording of that indicator at several points in time, and 3) two suitably-sized and sufficiently-similar, i.e., comparable, groups are formed; with one group having been ‘exposed’ to an intervention or care pathway and another ‘unexposed’ group. Generally only the first of these prerequisites seems to be met: i.e., with events being ‘measured’, or data related to ‘quality of life’, ‘quality’ or ‘health status’ being collected. This study suggests that measuring only patient-reported endpoints is unlikely to justify the attribution of effectiveness to a particular intervention, therefore, the credibility of such estimates of ‘effectiveness’ should be both independently and critically reviewed.
Preliminary conclusions
In all but the simplest scenarios effectiveness cannot simply be ‘measured’. However, dimensions of effectiveness can often be usefully estimated. Without proper assessment of such effectiveness estimates, and without the realisation that effectiveness cannot really be ‘measured’ in health or social care, the dreams of value-based care could easily turn into a nightmare.