'How effective are we as practitioners?' is a question to which we all want an answer. Understanding what, when and how to measure the impact of individual pieces of work with families, parents and children is of significant benefit.

This short guide is a practical resource that includes the following topics:

• pre- and post-measuring
• reliability and validity
• finding the right tools for the job
• ethical and practical issues
• information technology and measurement tools
• helping families to answer the questions
• what not to do.

It is designed to help individual workers and whole services understand the terms and issues within the act of measuring and, better still, how to go about it.

Download the accompanying briefing sheet:Examples of Effective Measuring Tools

It is a companion guide to Supervising family and parenting workers: a short guide and How to help families in trouble: a short guide.