The Strategic Prevention Framework identifies 5 components of successful community based prevention. Many describe evaluation as the segment they are least prepared to conduct. These 90-minute training sessions will guide participants to a fresh understanding of how to gain the most from the evaluation process. Hosted by Cindy Pharis from LiveOak Evaluation Consulting. This series is designed with your experience in mind, register for one or all sessions.  

March 9th: Planning and Evaluation are Partners

“Begin with the end in mind” is not just one of Stephen Covey’s seven habits of highly effective people. It is also the perfect reason to include measurement, evaluation concepts, or even an evaluator in any strategic, program, or project planning effort. In this first of three trainings, we will learn why evaluation is important, what its uses are, when and why to hire an outside evaluator, and about several approaches to evaluation of population or community-level substance abuse prevention efforts. This is an introduction to evaluation for people who have never done it or who need to re-energize their evaluation efforts.c

March 16th: Filling the Gap Between Planning & Impact

There can be a long road between where you start and the finish line on any community change initiative. And if the ‘finish line’ is a vision, it may be longer. Even well-thought-out action plans rarely make it through the wringer of day-to-day life. Evaluative practices like the consistent capturing of defined process measures and regular reporting help make sense of implementation. This session will provide ideas and tools for tracking data and keeping information organized for easy use later.

March 23rd: Telling Your Story Impactfully 

At some point in the improvement process, the questions will be asked: Are we making the difference we want to? Are we making more of a difference in some places than in others? How do we know? Answering these questions is one of the more exciting parts of evaluation – and one of the more exciting times for the program as well. Depending on how the program was laid out and the extent to which long-term, population-level measures were selected during the planning process, several different tactics can be applied to arrive at an objective and even evidence-based conclusion. This session will provide you with ideas and tools for evaluation that will help you tell your impact story impactfully, and introduce the concept of contribution analysis.