Authors: Ellie Taylor (The Salvation Army)Amplifying survivor voices has been the cornerstone of The Salvation Army's work in the anti-slavery realm. How does this translate to the monitoring and evaluation space? How do we truly represent the voices and experiences of those with lived experience of modern slavery in monitoring and evaluation, whilst aligning with key human rights principles?
Our Research Team are exploring how to centre survivor voices in the evaluation space. This session will detail use of a representative participatory evaluation approach to monitor and evaluate the Lived Experience Engagement Program (LEEP) for survivors of criminal labour exploitation. In this session we will explore the challenges and learnings uncovered through this project.
The LEEP is designed to empower survivors of criminal labour exploitation to share their expertise to make change. Piloted in 2022-2023, and continuing into 2024-2025, the LEEP - and resulting Survivor Advisory Council - provides a forum for survivors to use their lived experience to consult with government - to assist in preventing, identifying and responding to modern slavery.
The key points explored in this session will include:
- Realities of implementing an adaptive model, including continuous integration of evaluation findings into an iterative survivor engagement model.
- The importance of stakeholder inclusivity, integrating lived experience voices and amplifying them alongside program facilitators and government representatives.
- Complexities of evaluation in the modern slavery space, particularly when victim-survivors of forced marriage are included. We will speak to the need for trauma-informed, strengths-based measures and facilitating partnerships with the people the program serves.
Leading the session will be the The Salvation Army's project lead with a PhD in mental health and over 12 years of experience working with diverse community groups in Australia and internationally. They have extensive experience presenting at conferences both domestically and internationally.
