Leveraging Trauma-informed Approaches to Conduct More Inclusive Evaluations

Abstract Information: Conducting evaluations or project monitoring efforts with populations who have experienced trauma is a complex endeavor. Doing so effectively requires an intentional, inclusive approach with significant forethought and knowledge of trauma symptoms. However, most evaluators are not aware of how trauma-informed approaches can impact their interactions with participants as well as participant responses. This is a significant gap in our ability to ‘do no harm,’ as the repercussions of missing the mark when working with trauma-affected populations may be significant, including potentially re-traumatizing individuals and communities. Being trauma-sensitive can allow traumatized individuals and populations to re-claim narratives about themselves and may even support the empowerment of these communities through sharing and taking ownership of their stories. This session will seek to improve evaluators’ ability to work with trauma-affected populations by providing practical guidance on how to inclusively and sensitively engage with diverse populations who have experienced trauma. Panelists will cover ethics around collecting data from populations who have experienced trauma, provide examples from their experience working with such populations in a sensitive manner, and discuss how to navigate secondary trauma evaluators may face. Attendees can expect to come away from the session with concrete ideas of how they can better engage individuals who have experienced trauma in their evaluations, and in so doing amplify these individuals’ voices and stories.

Relevance Statement: Regardless of the sector an evaluator works in, it is very likely that, in the course of their evaluation work, they will come across populations that have experienced trauma: refugees, individuals who have been incarcerated, survivors of domestic violence, and many more. This can either be an opportunity to create space for such individuals to share their stories in a supportive, and even empowering, environment, or alternatively it may be an extractive and even traumatizing experience. Evaluators have a responsibility to demonstrate respect for and foster the inclusion of populations who have been marginalized, including trauma-affected populations. Despite this, many evaluators are not sufficiently prepared to engage with these populations in a trauma-sensitive manner. Building evaluators’ awareness of trauma and trauma-informed approaches to evaluation and project monitoring will not only enhance their ability to ‘do no harm’ when working with traumatized populations, but further give them the skills to center and amplify stories from populations who have experienced trauma. Doing so is not only in line with our ethical commitments as evaluators, but also deepens the credibility, validity, and nuance of our evaluation work. Leveraging practices such as using participatory approaches that enable such populations to take the lead in monitoring and evaluation efforts, connecting survivors of trauma to psychosocial support, leading trust-building exercises prior to data collection and engaging in ongoing, intentional informed consent efforts can be beneficial to evaluators working in diverse spaces such as social work, education, health and humanitarian support. This session will add valuable tools to an evaluator’s toolbox when they seek to design and implement an evaluation that will engage populations who have experienced trauma. The panelists will ground the session in their professional experiences working with and evaluating programs targeting individuals who have experienced trauma, thus providing attendees with concrete examples of what trauma-informed evaluation can look like in practice.