by Anthea Rutter Members who have made a long-term and wide-ranging contribution to the AES and the field of evaluation are recognised through a special category of membership called 'Fellow of the AES'. Amohia Boulton was made a Fellow in 2022, having been in and contributing to the evaluation profession since th...
Welcome to the AES Blog
Australasia has some excellent evaluators. More than that, we have an evaluation community full of ideas and a willingness to share. The AES has long provided a place for us to come together, at regional events and the annual conference, to develop our community together. Now we’re taking it online! The new AES blog will be a space for AES members – both new and experienced – to share their perspectives, reflecting on their theory...
If you have an idea, please contact us on blog@aes.asn.au. Please also view our blog guidelines.
by Anthea Rutter
Members who have made a long-term and wide-ranging contribution to the AES and the field of evaluation are recognised through a special category of membership called 'Fellow of the AES'.
Dorothy Lucks was made a Fellow in 2021, having been in and contributing to the evaluation profession since the 1990s. Dorothy is the Managing Director of a WA based company, SDF Global, and specialises in the field of sustainable development. A long-time member of the local WA branch of the AES, Dorothy was also a member of the International Relations Committee for the AES Board.
In this blog, Dorothy speaks with Anthea Rutter (Research Fellow, Centre for Program Evaluation) about her time in evaluation, her long association with the AES, and what drives her in her work.
by Jade Maloney, Sharon-Marra Brown, Alexandra Lorigan and Rosie Dale
At AES22, ARTD Consultants' Jade Maloney, Sharon Marra-Brown, Alexandra Lorigan and Holly Kovak presented on a panel with peer researchers, Kirsty Rosie and Rosie Dale, on the practicalities of co-evaluating with lived and living experience (LLE) researchers.
Co-evaluation like co-design is informed by the principle of 'nothing about us, without us.' While co-design recognises the rights of people with lived experience to shape the policies and programs that affect their lives and the way this strengthens policy, co-evaluation recognises the expertise that people with lived experience bring to designing measures of success, collecting data and making sense of findings and the way this can strengthen evaluation.
by Brianna Page and Mateja Hawley
Public policy seeks to address a wide array of issues, so it cannot rely only on one policy lever. Instead, tackling knotty problems or capitalising on big opportunities requires all the tools in a policymaker's toolkit. But this means evaluators must also consider our own toolkits, in order to be able to provide robust evidence on multi-faceted initiatives aimed at diverse stakeholders and changes in systems and practices. This was the challenge we at Nous faced when evaluating the Queensland Government's Advance Queensland (AQ) Initiative, a $755 million flagship initiative designed to foster innovation, build Queensland's knowledge economy, and create jobs now and for the future.
AQ has all the hallmarks of complexity. It comprises about 140 programs and activities delivered by 9 government departments, coordinated by the Department of Tourism, Innovation and Sport (DTIS). It includes programs aimed at a diverse range of stakeholders – innovators, businesses, researchers, investors and industry – and includes three priority groups – Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, women, and regional and remote innovators.
by Kate Baker
When it comes to improving the health and wellbeing of our communities, there's quite a lot of peddling going on. Needless to say we've been peddling even harder through these recent times of COVID-19. We are working hard to manage the increasing load on our mental health services system. We are working hard to respond to the impacts of racism, gender inequity, poor diet and our increasingly sedentary lives. We are working hard to manage 'the loneliness epidemic' and its associated health effects, and not to mention a struggling aged care system. There's a lot going on and I can't help but feel like there's quite a bit of bumping around in the dark as we work hard to build happy, healthy communities. I'm not really sure we are getting to the bottom of things.
Social and Economic Impact Assessment of Community First Development (2021)
by Lea Gage and Sharon Babyack, Community First Development
In the second half of 2021, Community First Development took a journey with ACIL Allen (https://acilallen.com.au/) to undertake a significant assessment on the effectiveness of the work we do in partnership with First Nations' communities on their community projects.
by Alison Rogers
In 2020 I wrote a fable about a dog called Champ. This fable was illustrative of anecdotes I heard from evaluators when they talked about non-evaluators on their teams who helped generate momentum for change. Champ from the fable represented the participants from my doctoral research – non-evaluators who were able to effectively persuade their reluctant peers to incorporate evaluation into their routine operations. This follow-up blog shares some the research findings to help answer the question:
by Doyen Radcliffe, Donna-Maree Stephens and Sharon Babyack - Community First Development
Community First Development led an AES seminar on creating a culturally safe evaluation and research space in September 2021.Community First Development is a First Nations’ led organisation that works with First Nations’ communities by invitation only, every project we do is monitored throughout, using indicators designed and evaluated by communities themselves. Our vision is to see First Nations’ peoples and communities thriving.
At the seminar, we shared lessons learnt from a participatory action research project focused on gaining a better understanding of 11 communities with whom we had been working for three years on community development projects. We are pleased to be back to answer the questions from our AES seminar. Most importantly, we would like to thank attendees for the words of encouragement and support.
by Keren Winterford
Applying ethical principles in evaluation is about making fair and just choices relevant to the context, culture of participants and evaluation purpose. In fact, whenever we speak to a person – a participant or stakeholder - as part of an evaluation, we need to think about ethics.
Why? Because this type of thinking ensures that our practice, at a bare minimum, is risk management, and adheres to the fundamental principle of ‘do no harm.’ It also shapes your relationships with participants and stakeholders as one of trust, mutual responsibility and ethical equality.
It is only through such practice that evaluation provides an important contribution to effective policy and change.
by Sarah Oxford
The Australian Evaluation Society recently held FestEVAL21, a week of online activities to celebrate evaluation. This year’s event included more than 1,100 registrants with attendance of about 3,000 people across 23 sessions. The engaging session topics ranged from themes addressing practical application such as capability and capacity building in evaluation to encouraging evaluator reflection and behaviour change. FestEVAL gave us ample opportunities to begin this work by platforming experts with diverse life experiences in evaluation.
The topics that caught my interest were the ones that made me look inwards and ask, what can I do to lead evaluations with inclusive and anti-racist practices? As evaluators a lot of our work involves exploring human behaviour change. But what happens when our behaviour and the systems that we work in and through need to change? How can we improve ourselves, our evaluation practices and the systems at large?