21 - Making Space for Community Partners and Program Participant Storytelling and Data Reflection in Equitable Evaluation of Family-Centered

Abstract Information: Whenever you engage in a process with people who bring their lived experience, it is their stories that are adding the richness and clarity to your methodology. From varied perspectives, this multi-year evaluation in two communities deepened understanding of the impact of Family-Centered Coaching (FCC), a human service practice that is designed to serve families holistically and center their leadership and expertise. An equitable evaluation process allowed the project’s sponsor, The Prosperity Agenda (TPA), to extend the principles and practice of FCC into its evaluation by using participant-centered processes throughout to make space for the voice of program staff and participants. The evaluation process allowed us to learn about the real life impacts of the goals and principles of FCC as participants were telling us their stories. Based on participant stories, we were able to ask, “What should be the aims and process of the evaluation?” As we together mapped the pathways, designed tools, and understood the data, team members illustrated their insights with what was really happening in their lives. What we initially identified as the impact of FCC on their lives, was not what they saw as the highest priority. It was their stories that allowed us to adjust and align throughout the process. Indispensable to building and growing the relationships necessary for equitable evaluation were community based agency partners: Clover, a multi-service agency serving New Orleans for 114 years, and Springboard to Opportunities, a resident-driven agency supporting families in affordable housing alongside direct cash payments in Jackson, MS and Baltimore, MD. The project was guided and facilitated by research scientist Chandria Jones, PhD, who onboarded TPA and program staff and participants to evaluation methodology in an approach that built their confidence and trust and ensured the integrity of the methodology. The team built relationships, recruited staff and participants, engaged them and their stories to guide the pathways, design tools, collect data , and use processes like data parties to make sense of the results. In further discussion with the audience, panelists will share their experiences of the strengths and challenges of the process, which was also conducted almost exclusively via web meetings.

Relevance Statement: The relevance of this proposal to evaluation practitioners, project sponsors and funders, and other stakeholders, will be practical presentation and discussion of a project applying the growing field of Culturally Responsive and Equitable Evaluation. Insight from recent practice from several perspectives, research scientist, community-based partners, and project sponsor, will engage audience members of various experience levels by sharing how priorities and decisions changed at different key moments. Stakeholders considering applying more participant-centered practices will have a clear understanding of how they may need to shift how they propose the process to funders, build relationships with partners and participants, and adapt to those shifts in priorities that the lived experience of participants offers. The panelists will offer the audience the opportunity to either shift practice or deepen their already participatory practices. The results of the evaluations in Jackson and NOLA allowed TPA and its partners to re-assess and shift how we presented the benefits of FCC and how practitioners employing FCC apply its tools. A greater impact even may be that agencies who participated in the evaluation process experienced the modeling and technical assistance that may allow them to continue independently.