As the world began to shelter in place to flatten the curve of the coronavirus pandemic, I did what many social workers do: I checked in on my clients to make sure they were ok.
With the exception of one client, all of my client organizations turned their initial attention to orienting their staff to the world of working from home. So, naturally, most of their time was taken up with that.
My one client that was already working remotely before the shelter in place order didn’t have this issue. What they did experience, however, was a drastic shift in their programming.
To use the terminology we’ve been hearing on the news, this client (like all of my clients) had to figure out what was “essential” and what wasn’t in terms of how implementing their programs impacted staff capacity to support their program participants, many who support communities heavily impacted by COVID-19.
Putting on my social worker hat, we discussed how this organization makes decisions under normal circumstances given the work they do (abortion access and advocacy). What’s normal for them is operating with the understanding that anything (from policy introductions that can restrict abortion access, to cyberattacks and general anti-abortion rhetoric) can occur to undermine how they support their members.
So, in many ways, they’re used to being nimble. Trying to do this work during a pandemic is another experience entirely.
We talked about how this nimbleness can be applied to how they’re thinking about their programs under the pandemic. One process we’ve implemented over a year ago was the creation of an evaluation working group consisting of staff members from most of their departments who have a willingness and desire to add more intentionality in their program development, data gathering, and sense-making via evaluation. One first meeting as a group grounded the groups’ expectations as well as introduced the process of evaluative thinking.
Given that this client’s focus with me as been on evaluation capacity building, not much changed on my end in terms of still being able to engage staff, but as with all evaluations, I had to pivot the project to address this client’s emerging need: supporting their member base. The client informed me that they had to make quick decisions on which programs can still operate. If their programming could no longer operate as intended, 1) what can they learn from this, 2) how can they pivot programs deem essential to their work, 3) what qualifies a program as “non-essential”, and 4) how can they make a “non-essential” program more “essential” in the future?
I once had a supervisor that would tell staff, “Your Plan B should be as strong as your Plan A.”
I thought he was wrong. If your Plan A is strong enough, there would be no need for a Plan B.
As I move through the pandemic along with my clients, I see that my former supervisor and I were both correct. Your Plan B should be just as strong as your Plan A.
In response to my client’s needs, I created an evaluative thinking activity.
This activity is ideal for:
- Anyone responsible for developing, running, and evaluating programs and services
- Anyone interested in applying evaluative thinking
Here’s what you need:
The steps:
The discussion guide uses language for staff that work mostly within departments, but you can do this activity with your entire staff if that’s more convenient. I feel the instructions are pretty self-explanatory, but here’s some guidance:
Program Decision Making: List out your programs and services into two categories- The ones currently in operation, and the ones that are on pause
Collaborative Notes: Using the table on page 3, list out each program or service in the first column. Next, for each program/service, answer the following:
- Why? (What were the determining factors that led to this program’s continuation or pausing? (i.e., program implementation, staff capacity, participant priority, ease of pivoting, perceived impact, perceived priority, etc.)
- What’s going on? (What is currently happening with the program’s activities? What is going on for the participants? What’s going on for staff? For paused programs, in what ways can program activities and implementation be reviewed to be responsive to different contexts in the future?)
- What’s new? (What new strategies were implemented? Where are noticeable shifts occurring, both big and small, with the program’s activities, for program participants, and for staff? What is occurring now that wasn’t occurring before? For paused programs, in what ways can program activities and implementation be reviewed to be responsive to different contexts in the future?)
- What remains? (What are the emerging needs and how could they be addressed?)
- What does it all mean? (Think about the program within the bigger picture of your organization’s priorities of staff and community care, emergency response technical assistance, and urgent funding to support the organization. What does this program mean to the staff and to the community? For operating programs that required more heavy lifting, was it worth the effort to do so? For operating programs that experienced little to no changes, is that considered a success? For paused programs, was there more that could have been done to continue the program?)
Let’s process what we have:
This discussion guide is intended to be flexible based on your staff’s needs.
While you can type out your responses, feel free to speak openly and have someone serve as a note-taker using either the guide or a larger surface such as a whiteboard.
Once the questions are answered, spend time as a department or as staff to develop an action plan that ties this process into your program decision-making.
While this guide was created with the current pandemic in mind, use this guide on an annual basis for applying routine evaluative thinking.
Key takeaway
This activity combines program design with evaluative thinking. As evaluative thinking requires a willingness to continuously question what’s happening; it’s action-oriented, leading to better decision-making, more well-focused programming, better-designed evaluations, and stronger organizational decision making. Try this activity and let me know how it goes for you.
Raise Your Voice: How did you staff use the “Evaluative Thinking Discussion Guide”? Share below in the comments section.
