As part of our funding relationship with ALLIANCE we were invited to attend training from Evaluation Support Scotland to look at analysing and reporting our project. Two champions attended for the project how are involved in administering and reporting on our activities.
The training looked at good practice in report writing, presentation of data, gathering information and working with funders. There were 14 different attendees from other ALLIANCE funded projects, form Aberdeen to Argyle, which presented some networking opportunities and lots of experience in the room to learn from.
Key question: What worked, for whom, in what circumstances?
We returned home from Glasgow with more confidence that what we have already been doing is on the right track in terms of reporting and analysis, as well as some interesting contacts to follow up.
The journey also gave time for reflection on next steps. We have decided to explore the following to streamline and support our evaluation processes at the hub.
- Create online and/or app for champion reflections
- Explore how to encourage and support champions to reflect and gather data, one idea was to set up ‘buddies’ – those with skills in writing could sit alongside those who are less confident or have little time and type their reflections with them,
- Reflect on our existing evaluation framework and simplify for reporting to this year’s funders.
- Explore creating case studies – useful for gaining funding and our website, but how do we work with ensuring confidentiality?
- Explore engaging a masters or final year student from a related discipline such as psychology, who can take existing data and analyse as a project.
- All ideas on evaluation to be explored with other champions at a future champions networking event.
