This symposium will focus on collaborative, partnership-based approaches to evaluation, with an emphasis on (a) partnerships involving university faculty and community stakeholders and (b) the use of evaluation to effect change. Presenters include 3 university-based faculty with 20+ to 40+ years of evaluation-relevant experience and one community partner (and researcher) from a public school system. The presenters each employ a partnership-based approach to evaluation and view evaluation and its role as not just serving to “know” or inform, but as an intentional strategy for refining program practices, improving services and supports, guiding resource allocation, informing decision-making, and influencing system change and policy efforts.
A first presentation will frame what is meant by a partnership approach to evaluation and programmatic or community change. The authors will describe the approach’s roots in community-based participatory research (CBPR) and discuss strategies that facilitate effective, sustained, mutually-beneficial partnerships.
A next presentation, relying heavily on examples from work with community partners, will focus on the implementation of such an approach and highlight key practices that can support a partnership-based approach to evaluation.
A third presentation will emphasize the importance of a collaborative, capacity building approach and the degree to which such work can facilitate longer-term and ongoing interactions.
A final presentation will be led by a community partner, a researcher from a major public sector system, who is in regular contact with university-based researchers. This discussion will focus on the perspective and experiences of the community partner, underscoring the relative merits and challenges associated with this approach versus other methods and models employed by faculty in their work with community stakeholders.
Across the presentations, the authors will draw on real examples across different domains (e.g., early childhood education, intellectual and developmental disabilities, family support, education), including evaluation-capacity building efforts with community-based organizations, evaluation planning within a new and developing partnership, and a multi-component evaluation in the context of a mature partnership. While describing the short- and long-term benefits that these approaches can yield for diverse stakeholders (across settings and contexts), the presenters will also consider challenges faced in partnership-based evaluation, issues in community-university partnerships, and barriers to the implementation of evaluation recommendations. Beyond encouraging questions throughout the more structured presentation of information, the presenters plan to use several questions to facilitate discussion and co-learning. Those attending the session will be encouraged to share: their approach to evaluation, including the degree to which they engage in partnership approaches to evaluation; their views regarding the alignment of the described practices and strategies with their own work; and the challenges they have faced in evaluation contexts. Session participants will be asked to consider the factors and conditions that contributed to more versus less successful experiences (i.e., what has “worked” and what has not) and to gauge the relative potential benefits of forming partnerships, developing capacity, and collaborating, rather than maintaining distance in the evaluator role. Participants will also discuss the tension that may arise between ensuring integrity in the evaluation process and building and sustaining relationships.