Lead Data Strategist CCNY, Inc. Buffalo, New York, United States
Abstract Information: Have members of your evaluation team ever asked, “How can we increase buy-in and participation in evaluation activities?” or “Aren’t program participants interested in knowing what we’ve found?”
This session will provide value to anyone connected to evaluation by providing strategies and examples of how to appropriately empower everyone from program participants, program staff, and evaluators to contribute to the evaluation planning process in a meaningful way that results in understanding and (dare we say it) excitement for the evaluation process and findings.
By sharing stories of our own successes and failures in the evaluation of a county-wide implementation and impact of High Fidelity Wraparound and New York State’s Help Me Grow programming, this session will explore the benefits of collaborating with stakeholders to create the story of a program, while demonstrating strategies to approach inclusive discussion and decision making to the benefit of all involved.
Relevance Statement: The term “participatory evaluation” is used to describe “an approach that involves the stakeholders of a programme or policy in the evaluation process”(1) and is beneficial in that it can Identify locally relevant evaluation questions Improve accuracy and relevance of reports Establish and explain causality Improve program performance Empower participants Build capacity Develop leaders and build teams Sustain organizational learning and growth (1)
Despite these benefits, it can often be easier to draw up an evaluation plan without input from all relevant stakeholders for the sake of saving time, money, and other resources. For this reason, our team believes that sharing stories of our successes and failures conducting participatory evaluations will help attendees identify when and how to implement these strategies in their evaluation work. We will also share strategies of both how to begin these conversations at the outset of an evaluation and with stakeholders who have been involved in evaluations that exist on an ongoing basis that may have pre-existing evaluation plans/activities established. By better understanding how to approach discussions of engagement with relevant stakeholders, participants perceived barriers to implementing participatory evaluation in practice will be reduced.
