This fascinating project involved our consultants in a ‘meta evaluation’ of the three-year federal Government ‘Partnerships against Domestic Violence’ initiative. The initiative involved funding for approximately 80 projects nation-wide staggered across a 3-year period. The funding included both project funding and funding to commission independent evaluations of their projects. We were engaged by the federal government to review the project evaluation reports to identify the patterns, trends and learning emerging from them so they could be shared with the sector.
A formative’ evaluation approach was used so that the emerging learnings and insights could inform the work that was happening across the country. As opposed to a ‘summative’ report at the end of 3 years.
To obtain some deeper insights beyond the evaluation reports we interviewed staff from a variety of agencies focusing on ‘what was working well’ and what were the key things that they had learnt from the work to date. These were developed into a series of case studies. We sent out quarterly updates to all agencies and ran annual workshops development workshops around Australia, and giving participants staff the opportunity to hear best practice examples into their work and consider how they could incorporate these into their work.
The decision to bring the learnings and good practice examples to the sector during the 3-year initiative proved to be an inspired decision, as the participants greatly valued the ‘freshness’ of the material and the variety of good practice examples which were presented.
The ‘meta evaluation’ was invaluable in ensuring that the experience and knowledge gained across all the projects were brought together and shared through the workshops enabling participants to discuss and reflect on their own context and incorporate best practice examples into their work.
The information garnered through this process had a significant impact on long term government policy and application of funds.
In the spirit of reconciliation, the LDC group respectfully acknowledges the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their Elders past and present, to emerging leaders and the ongoing living cultures of Aboriginal people.
