138 - Sharing Stories of Growing Evaluation Capacity

Abstract Information: While evaluation is acknowledged as an essential component of public health programs, building an organizational culture that asks evaluative questions and uses findings for decision making can be difficult. Since 2009, the National Asthma Control Program has collaborated with its many partners, including the Indiana State Health Department, to build and sustain evaluation capacity. Together we’ve planted the seeds for high quality evaluation and have learned many lessons while growing a culture of evaluation and evaluative thinking. To start this roundtable, evaluators from federal and state asthma programs will tell our stories of how we cultivated evaluation as a learning process within our organizations. We will highlight what helped or hindered evaluation practice and use. We will then invite participants to tell their stories, and together we’ll discover common themes and identify innovative ideas that foster growth.

Relevance Statement: There is a story behind every evaluation capacity building (ECB) effort—what was the impetus? Who supported it and who resisted? Did it make a difference? In 2009, The National Asthma Control Program (NACP) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) developed a logic model to outline the story we wanted to guide our ECB work and that of our partners in state and local asthma programs, including the Indiana Department of Health (IDOH). Over the past 14 years, our respective stories have evolved as we have learned so much more about evaluation and emerging ideas, and as we have faced new challenges, including organizational shuffling, staff changes, and a pandemic. But our evaluations have provided a solid foundation to build upon and allowed for ease of reassessment to better align as we transition to a post-pandemic world. The seeds were planted, and when the fog lifted, the evaluation plants began growing again. We envision this roundtable being a chance to use storytelling as both documentation and data gathering. Storytelling can help us make sense of our journeys and assist the future generations with not only knowing where they are, but to know the why and how they got there. Roundtable facilitators from NACP and IDOH start the session by telling our stories. Then participants will be randomly assigned to small groups and CDC and IDOH facilitators will guide participant discussions of their own stories. Groups will then be brought back together and will share discussion highlights. We will be listening to hear: - What are the common elements across the stories? - What patterns emerged in the plotlines? Were there similar twists? - Are there shared dynamics among the characters in the stories? - Were there any dark moments of the soul shared? If so, how were they resolved? - How can we use our shared experiences to continue to grow? Before the end of the session, we plan a few moments to reflect on these questions and invite each participant to identify seeds they can take from the roundtable for their own ECB effort.