Monitoring the benefits of family counseling: Using satisfaction surveys to assess the clients' perspective

Client satisfaction surveys in the arena of mental health have become a frequently used approach to assessing benefits from services. While treated with suspicion by some researchers and practitioners, the findings from such surveys have proven useful to agencies that have systematically conducted such inquiries. The authors examine the body of work on client satisfaction and illustrate how such surveys can be used to monitor practice utilizing the experience of a multi-service family and children's agency. The discussion will include developing and implementing a counseling client satisfaction survey to both monitor client feedback and improve agency services.