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: Tony Kiessler (First Nations Connect), Alice Tamang (First Nations Connect, AU)

Effective First Nations engagement is integral in the design and delivery of culturally safe evaluations. The AES' First Nations Cultural Safety Framework discusses 10 principles for culturally safe evaluation and describes the journey of engagement. However, the question of how to engage effectively can be the first and most significant challenge faced by evaluators. There is little clarity on how to create opportunities for First Nations leadership and voices in our evaluations, how to engage appropriately, and who we should engage with. There is also the challenge of managing tight timeframes, client expectations and capabilities that can limit the focus on meaningful First Nations participation, partnership and co-creation.

This is a unique offering that enables practitioners and First Nations facilitators to walk together, explore shared challenges and identify opportunities to improve First Nations engagement. The session will explore the potential for partnerships in informing and implementing evaluations, opportunities to increase First Nations participation, privilege their experience and knowledge, and how evaluation practitioners can draw on these strengths through co-creation to amplify First Nations voices and leadership in evaluation practice.

This session aims to:

• Explore a principles-based approach to First Nations engagement;
• Discuss shared experiences on successful approaches to enhance First Nations partnership, participation and co-creation; and
• Develop a shared understanding of to take this knowledge forward through culturally safe evaluation commissioning, practice and reporting.

Discussion will draw on the collective experience of both the attendees and the facilitators, walking together. The sharing of ideas will be encouraged in a safe space that engages the audience in a collaborative dialogue with First Nations practitioners. This dialogue will explore current knowledge, capabilities and gaps, as well as the challenges (and how they can be overcome), as part of the broader journey to culturally safe evaluation practice.

Authors: Caitlin Barry (Y Victoria), Eugene Liston (Clear Horizon Consulting, AU)

The demand for organisations to measure impact seems to be ever increasing. However, impact measurement looks different depending on what level you are measuring it (program level, organisation-wide, ecosystem level etc). While a lot of organisations focus on measuring social impact at a program level, what appears to be less commonly achieved is the jump to effective measurement of impact at an organisation-wide level.

The literature providing guidance on how to implement org-wide social impact measurement makes it seem so straight-forward, like a Roman highway - all straight lines. But what is it really like in practice? How does it differ from program-level impact measurement? How can it be done? What resources does it take? And, what are the pitfalls?

The Y Victoria has spent the last three years on a journey to embed org-wide social impact measurement under the guidance of our evaluation partner. The Y Victoria is a large and diverse organisation covering 7 different sectors/service lines; over 5,500 staff; over 180 centres; and delivering services to all ages of the community. This presented quite a challenge for measuring organisation-wide impact in a meaningful way.

While the journey wasn't 'straight-forward', we've learnt a lot from navigating through it. This presentation will discuss the approach taken, tell the story of the challenges faced, trade-offs, lessons learnt (both from the client and consultant's perspective), and how we have adapted along the way.

Authors: Gillian Kennedy (The University of Notre Dame Australia), Tammy Solonec (Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre, AU)

Traditional Healers, known in the Kimberley as mabarn (medicine men) and parnany parnany warnti (group of women healers), have been practicing their craft for millennia, however, cultural forms of healing are not funded or incorporated into health services in Western Australia. In 2019 a Kimberley cultural organisation was funded to develop and trial a service delivery model of traditional healing. The trial ended in November 2023.

This presentation will reflect on a Developmental Evaluation (DE) that was undertaken throughout the model development and trial of this traditional healing service using a multi-method approach, incorporating participant observation; semi-structured interviews; small group discussions; and a client survey. Data was collated into a 'checklist matrix', using a traffic light system to show how each element of the model was tracking according to different stakeholder perspectives. This information was then provided back to the healing team iteratively to incorporate further into the model design.

The DE team acted as a 'critical friend' to the project. Two Aboriginal research assistants (one male and one female) were able to provide valuable cultural interpreting for the project to ensure that cultural sensitivities around the healing practices were carefully managed. The DE team also helped the healing team to develop a set of guiding principles and a Theory of Change to help the project stay true to their underpinning cultural values.

The DE process helped to inform a culturally-governed and owned clinic model, working with both men and women healers, that is unique to the Kimberley. DE puts the evaluation team inside the project. This relational element is reflective of Aboriginal worldviews but may bring challenges for perceptions of objectivity that are championed in traditional forms of evaluation. We argue that the evaluator as a trusted, critical friend was ultimately part of the success of the healing project.

Authors: Duncan Rintoul (UTS Institute for Public Policy and Governance (IPPG) ),George Argyrous (UTS Institute for Public Policy and Governance (IPPG), AU),Tish Creenaune (UTS Institute for Public Policy and Governance (IPPG), AU),Narina Dahms (ACT Government: Chief Ministers, Treasury and Economic Development Directorate, AU),Peter Robinson (ACT Government: Chief Ministers, Treasury and Economic Development Directorate, AU),Robert Gotts (ACT Government: Chief Ministers, Treasury and Economic Development Directorate, AU)

The ACT Evidence and Evaluation Academy is a prominent and promising example of sustained central agency investment in evaluation capability building (ECB).

The Academy was launched in 2021 as a new initiative to improve the practice and culture of evidence-based decision-making in the ACT public sector. Its features include:

• a competitive application process, requiring executive support and financial co-contribution
• a series of in-person professional learning workshops where participants learn alongside colleagues from other Directorates
• a workplace project, through which participants apply their learning, receive 1-1 coaching, solve an evaluation-related challenge in their work and share their insights back to the group
• executive-level professional learning and practice sharing, for nominated evaluation champions in each Directorate
• sharing of resources and development of evaluation communities of practice in the Directorates
• an annual masterclass, which brings current participants together with alumni and executive champions.

Four years and over 100 participants later, the Academy is still going strong. There has been an ongoing process of evaluation and fine tuning from one cohort to the next, with encouraging evidence of impact. This impact is seen not only for those individuals who have taken part but also for others in their work groups, including in policy areas where evaluation has not historically enjoyed much of a foothold.

The learning design of the Academy brings into focus a number of useful strategies - pedagogical, structural and otherwise - that other central agencies and line agencies may like to consider as part of their own ECB efforts.

The Academy story also highlights some of the exciting opportunities for positioning evaluation at the heart of innovation in the public sector, particularly in the context of whole-of-government wellbeing frameworks, cross-agency collaboration and strategic linkage of data sets to support place-based outcome measurement.

Authors: Milena Gongora (Great Barrier Reef Foundation)

Best practice in evaluation encompasses a crucial step of learning, yet it often receives inadequate emphasis, particularly within government-funded initiatives. Our paper documents the journey of transforming a top-down, prescriptive evaluation process within a government-funded program into an inclusive, consultative approach aligned with Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) principles.

Funded by Australian Government, and managed by the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, the Reef Trust Partnership (RTP) launched in 2018 aiming to enhance the resilience of the Great Barrier Reef. Within it, a $200 million portfolio aims to improve water quality working with the agricultural industry. A framework for impact evaluation was developed in its early days. Whilst appropriate, due to the need to comply with broader government requirements, it was top-down in nature.

Four years into implementation, the Foundation was ready to synthesise, interpret and report on the program's impact. The Foundation could have simply reported "up" to government. However, we acknowledged that in doing so, we risked missing critical context, simplifying findings, misinterpreting information and presenting yet another tokenistic meaningless report.

Interested in doing things better, we instead circled back with our stakeholders in a participatory reflection process. Through a series of carefully planned workshops, we invited on-ground program practitioners to ground-truth our findings, share contextual nuances, and collectively strategise for future improvements.

Despite initial reservations, participants embraced the opportunity, fostering an atmosphere of open dialogue and knowledge exchange. This reflective process not only enriched our understanding of program impact but also enhanced collaboration, strengthening overall program outcomes.

Our experience highlights the importance of transcending tokenistic evaluation practices, particularly in environments where top-down directives prevail. Participatory approaches can be implemented at any scale, contributing to a culture of continuous improvement and strategic learning, ultimately enhancing the impact and relevance of evaluation efforts.

Authors: Laura Baker (ACIL Allen), Larissa Brisbane (Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water NSW, AU)

Recommendations are the sharp end of evaluation, connecting evidence and insights to the improvement we aim to achieve. Many evaluation theories focus on framing and conducting evaluations, rather than developing recommendations or the associated organisational change required to complete the journey.

Recommendations point the way beyond an evaluation report, as the journey doesn't end when the report is produced. This presentation tells the story of recommendation wayfinding. We will share an evaluation practitioner and a commissioner's journey on navigating the challenge of developing actionable recommendations to promote impact beyond program close and into future decisions.

Evaluators need ways to integrate diverse evidence sources and generate actionable insights. The consultant will share perspectives on where these insights and the associated recommendations "come from": how different data come together to inform insights, the process for developing recommendations (balancing independence and engagement from commissioners), and how to design recommendations for the program and beyond.

Commissioners need recommendations that make sense in their context. The commissioners will share considerations in what makes a recommendation useful, and how we use this evaluation journey to leverage learning, skill building, and improvement opportunities. They will also discuss the evaluation audience and how ambitious can you get with recommendations.

This work over a number of years has helped build the evaluation knowledge base within our organisations. We will close with our recommendations to you - with the top ideas that we plan to take with us on our next evaluation journey.
eloped evaluations for multiple end users, each with their own needs. They'll share the research and engagement approaches and tools, which have been useful in different situations, as well as what was useful specifically for this project.

Authors: Sandra Opoku (Relationships Australia Victoria), Kate Matthies-Brown (Relationships Australia Victoria, AU)

Yarra Communities That Care (CTC) is a network of 24 local partner agencies who share a commitment to support the healthy development of young people in the City of Yarra. One of the key initiatives of Yarra CTC is the collaborative delivery of evidence-based social and emotional messaging to families by a centrally coordinated Facilitator Network involving multiple partner agencies. Building on positive feedback and program achievements from 2017-2022, we led an evaluation of the collaborative and place-based approach of the Yarra CTC Facilitator Network to better understand its contribution to systemic change and apply learnings to future place-based approaches for our respective organisations. The evaluation project team adopted the 'Place-Based Evaluation Framework' and was informed by a comprehensive theory of change. This provided an anchor in an otherwise complex and dynamic environment and unfamiliar territory.
There is an increased focus on collaborative place-based approaches at the federal, state and local levels as a promising approach to addressing complex social problems. Previous evaluations and literature identify successful collaboration and a strong support entity or backbone as key enabling factors that make place-based approaches successful. The collaborative place-based approach to strengthening family relationships in Yarra provides a local example of this.

Consistent with systems change frameworks this evaluation provided evidence of structural changes. These changes, manifested in the form of improved practices and dedicated resources and supports, ultimately leading to effective collaborative and transformative changes for the community.

This presentation will share the journey, key insights, and learnings of the evaluation project team over a two-year period to collaboratively gather evidence to inform ongoing program development and contribute to future place-based approaches. The Yarra CTC Facilitator Network serves as a valuable template for implementing best practices for place-based coalitions due to its focus on collaboration and fostering a sense of community.

Authors: Andrew McLachlan (NSW Department of Education)

At first glance, realist methodology seems ideally suited to investigating implementation problems (Dalkin et al., 2021). It is versatile in that it draws on theories from diverse fields of social inquiry. It is pragmatic in that the theories it adopts are deemed useful only in so far as they offer explanatory insight. And it is transferable; realist methodology is less concerned with generalising findings than in understanding how programs work under different conditions and circumstances.

As for implementation science, its founding aim is purpose built for realist work; it seeks to improve the uptake of evidence-based practices by investigating the barriers and facilitators to implementation. Yet despite the affinity between realist methodology and implementation science, so far there have been few attempts to formalise the relationship (Sarkies et al., 2022).

This paper offers insights into how evaluators can harness realist methodology to better understand challenges of program implementation. It demonstrates how implementation concepts like fidelity (the degree to which a program is delivered as intended), adaptation (the process of modifying a program to achieve better fit), and translation (the ability to transfer knowledge across organisational borders) can be combined with realist concepts to develop a more active understanding of context.

In showing how to construct program theories that are responsive to changing conditions, the paper promises to equip evaluators with tools that can help them navigate the complexities of program implementation in their own work.

Authors: Kirstin Clements (Arts Centre Melbourne)

How does a creative institution develop an effective evaluation framework that honours the artistic process while meeting rigorous research standards?

At Arts Centre Melbourne we asked ourselves, 'what if?'... What if we integrated the economic story into a fit-for-purpose value proposition? What if we see the emotive, subjective nature of the arts as an asset, rather than a challenge in our evaluation design? What if we tried to embed systems thinking and extend our approach beyond individual projects?

Like many purpose-driven industries, the arts face an increasingly competitive funding landscape and heightened expectations from stakeholders for evidence-based reporting on the value generated by initiatives. Historically, in the arts such reporting has been responsive to external demands and formats. One of our core goals has been to equip the organisation with the capability and capacity to pro-actively drive its own public value narrative through a transparent, consistent approach.

In this presentation, we spotlight Arts Centre Melbourne's innovative approach to building appetite for evaluation and to designing a fit-for-purpose organisational impact model and evaluation function. We offer insights into the conceptual and methodological approaches we've adopted to achieve our objectives: supporting effective advocacy for the public value of the arts, enhancing accountability to stakeholders, and fostering a culture of continuous learning.

In sharing how we have creatively navigated challenges and opportunities at Arts Centre Melbourne, we aim to provide valuable advice and inspiration for evaluators and supporting professionals, particularly those working in sectors where evaluation is yet to be understood as 'business-as-usual' activity.