aes24 International Evaluation Conference

Authors: Anne Smyth (LDC Group), Lesley Thornton (LDC Group, AU), Kym Coupe (First Step, AU), Caroline Lynch (Launch Housing, AU)

As all Wayfinders would understand, when we embarked on a developmental evaluation of the Road Home, we really had no idea how the program or evaluation would play out in practice. We did know however that the usual way of delivering crisis housing services was not working well for either clients or staff. Something needed to change. We needed to change. So, we did - we being the Road Home team working with the evaluators.

Road Home centres on a strong and engaged multidisciplinary team to deliver mental health, medical, legal and housing services to people in crisis accommodation, where they are, and when they need it the most. This integrated way of working is in stark contrast to the conventional, single discipline outreach and in-reach approaches that characterise service delivery in the community sector - its impact has been significant.

This panel will bring leading representatives of the Road Home team and the evaluators together to explore with our audience what we have learned; what it takes to do this well, the benefits to clients, staff and participating organisations, the pitfalls and challenges and the value of developmental evaluation and its methods.

We now have a much better idea of what Road Home looks like, what it takes to support and enable it, to achieve valued outcomes and to meaningfully evaluate it. The role of evaluators and the project manager in holding the uncertain and evolving space characteristic of developmental evaluation and wayfinding is central - it has taken clarity, alignment of purpose, a lot of patience and much persistence, not to mention flexibility. It has been and remains quite the journey!

Authors: Lucy Macmillan (ANROWS), Micaela Cronin (Domestic and Family Violence Commission, AU), Tessa Boyd-Caine (ANROWS, AU),Tiffiny Lewin (Lived Experience Advisory Council Member) (National Lived Experience Advisory Council, AU)

As evaluators, we are often asked to examine complex, systems-change initiatives. Domestic, family and sexual violence is a national crisis. In late 2022, the Commonwealth Government, alongside all state and territory governments released the second National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-2032. The plan provides an overarching national policy framework to guide actions across all parts of society, including governments, businesses, media, educational institutions and communities to achieve a shared vision of ending gender-based violence in one generation.

After 12 years of implementation under the first National Plan, assessing whether our efforts had made a meaningful difference towards ending violence against women was a difficult task. We ask: As we embark on setting up measurement and evaluation systems against the second National Plan, how do we avoid making the same mistakes again?

The Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commission was established in 2022 to focus on practical and meaningful ways to measure progress towards the objectives outlined in the National Plan. This session will discuss:

1. the current plans, opportunities and challenges in monitoring progress, and evaluating the impact of this national framework, and
2. the role of lived-experience in evaluation and how large publicly-funded institutions can balance their monitoring and sensemaking roles at the national-level with accountability to victim-survivors.

The panel will explore common challenges faced when seeking to monitor and evaluate complex national policy initiatives, including data capture, consistency and capacity, and explore some of the opportunities ahead.

The audience will have the opportunity to contribute their insights and expertise on how we, as evaluators, approach the evaluation of complex systems-change at a national scale, and over extended durations, while also prioritising the voices of those most affected. How do we collectively contribute to understanding if these national policy agendas will make a difference?

Authors: Kristy Hornby (Grosvenor), Eleanor Williams (Australian Centre for Evaluation), Mandy Chaman (Outcomes, Practice and Evidence Network)

Navigating ethics is an essential part of any evaluation journey. As evaluators we often encounter complex situations that require thoughtful consideration of ethical principles and practice, far beyond the formal ethics process itself.

This session will explore real-world scenarios and provide attendees with actionable strategies to enhance ethical decision-making in their evaluation practice. The panel will speak to questions of managing commissioners' expectations, how to speak frankly to program areas where under-performance is found, issues of confidentiality, ensuring culturally sensitive practice, and ensuring power imbalances are acknowledged and addressed.

The panel presentation will take attendees through the journey of ethical practice and will consider:
- The overall significance of ethical thinking in evaluation
- Common ethical challenges faced by evaluators
- Practical tools and frameworks that empower evaluators to uphold their ethical standards and deliver meaningful results that can withstand scrutiny
- From an internal evaluator perspective, the balancing act of managing these tensions successfully
- Case studies that can illustrate the application of practical ethics in evaluation
- Takeaways and recommendations.

Eleanor Williams, Managing Director of the Australian Centre for Evaluation; Mandy Charman, Project Manager for the Outcome, Performance and Evidence Network in the Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare; and Kristy Hornby, Victorian Program Evaluation Practice Lead at Grosvenor will be the panellists. Our expert panellists will talk to their deidentified war stories in their current and previous roles to set out exactly what kind of challenges evaluators can face in the conduct of their work, and learn from the panellists' hands-on experience on what to do about them. Attendees will be encouraged to participate in a dynamic dialogue with the panellists and with each other, to share their own experiences and strategies for addressing ethical concerns, building on the content shared through the session.