Team Morale: What’s going on behind the scenes in teams?
In 2009, I completed my PhD research on the interactions and ways of working of practitioners carrying out different roles in the same setting. I explored how teachers, teaching assistants and speech and language therapists/pathologists navigate the tricky territory of negotiating how to do their jobs most effectively alongside each other in schools. This research […]
Impact: What is it?
As an evaluator, an absolutely key part of my role is to identify ways to determine and demonstrate the impact of the projects, programs and/or social ventures that I work on. An impact of some sort, an influence or effect, is the objective of government-funded projects and programs and of social ventures including social enterprises. […]
Empathy: the main ingredient in effective community engagement
Empathy… This is what connects us as human beings. The capacity to be able to relate to another person’s experience. We are loving beings who want to connect with other loving beings. These days everyone seems to be talking about community engagement, consumer engagement, user experience … In community health, the focus is on developing […]
5 things I learned about evaluation in 2015
Happy New Year! In 2015 I marked my second anniversary as an independent evaluator. These two plus years have added immense knowledge and understanding of evaluation to my previous experience of working on evaluations as a Research Fellow at the Australian Health Workforce Institute at The University of Melbourne. Stepping out as a consultant in […]
Marrying two worlds: Can evaluation dance with the Arts?
I feel deeply blessed to be working as a consultant evaluator. Not only does this draw on my academic experience and bring me opportunities to work in the social and community development sectors, it also enables me to bring in another of my skill sets: coaching and facilitation. This is one marriage of skills and […]
Community participation: mutually beneficial
Over the past three weeks I have had the privilege of attending three community events about oral health services for refugee communities. The stories I heard from the community members at these events about the oral health practices in their own cultures were amazing and insightful. I had many realisations about the Western medical model […]
Community development projects: The Heroes’ Journey
In this era of the ‘personal brand’ and celebrating uniqueness, I delight in drawing together my own interests, skills and passions in my work. As a consultant to the Public Health and Community Health sectors, I develop evaluation plans, conduct participatory evaluations, co-develop strategies and frameworks, support and coach project teams, and facilitate organisational and team […]
What is evaluation, really?
Despite being an established health program evaluator, I am still discovering what evaluation really is and where its true potential lies. Evaluation is widely recognised as a necessary part of the funding cycle. In other words, where there is government spending and investment, there is evaluation. This is a good thing but it is time for evaluation […]
Human to human: Community participation
This is my first blog post on this new website, which represents the start of a new chapter in my work as a consultant evaluator. I’ve written blog posts before but this is my first go at expressing and reflecting on my role as an evaluator and the ways in which I am humbly learning […]