15 Mar, 2017

Reproductive Justice: Your Struggles, Your Recommendations [INFOGRAPHIC]

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T19:28:44-04:00March 15th, 2017|Categories: Equity & Justice|Tags: program evaluation, reproductive justice, Research|0 Comments

One of my projects for 2017 is the creation of a training series that aligns my business’ primary offerings: program design, program evaluation, and Reproductive Justice.

My original idea was to create a product or service that helps nonprofits evaluate their programming based on the RJ framework, based on my training as an evaluator with knowledge on different types of evaluative theories that I feel best align with Reproductive Justice.

My focus shifted largely based on my experiences with current and past clients. They shared that while they embrace Reproductive Justice, some weren’t sure how they could implement the framework in their workplace, on campus, or in their community settings. Some of their concerns included a lack of overall knowledge around RJ, an inability to explain what the framework is to various audiences, not being in positions of influence where they have the authority to include the framework in their programming and activities, or they see how RJ could fit within the context of their current work (even though the desire is there).

Plus, for a long time I’ve been hired to work with clients in a very siloed way, where they originally work with me in one way, and would rehire me because they see that they can benefit from one of my other offerings. I wanted to create a way to marry program design, program evaluation, and Reproductive Justice, and for it to be useful for clients, community members, students, human service providers, educators, activists, government agencies, and whoever else wants to see Reproductive Justice within the context of design thinking and evaluation theory. In essence, this training and toolkit is my way of intentionally shifting toward teaching and educating the value of design thinking and evaluation (along with Reproductive Justice) so that it becomes more engaging.

In order for make sure this training and toolkit will be useful, I conducted a survey to see what are current struggles folks are facing with Reproductive Justice, how they create programs, services and campaigns (and what are the driving factors behind why these programs, services and campaigns exist), and how they gather feedback that shows the impact of their work on the communities they care about. Using Piktochart, I created an infographic below that shares some of the highlights.

For now, this project is called the “Reproductive Justice Training & Toolkit”. When it launches (which is expected to be in early Summer 2017), it’ll have a catchier title. While the survey is closed, you can still share how this training and toolkit can help you. Email me at contact[at]nicoleclarkconsulting[dot]com and we’ll set up a time to chat.

And now, let’s take a look at the infographic:

(more…)

8 Mar, 2017

Try This: Ask Better Questions

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T19:28:59-04:00March 8th, 2017|Categories: Research & Evaluation|Tags: program evaluation, Research, Try This|0 Comments

Starting today, we’re going to ask better questions. Questions that allow you to dig deeper to unearth richer experiences. This is crucial in gaining a better understanding of why someone keeps (or stops) coming back to your programs, products or services.

When I say “dig deeper”, what I’m getting at is being strategic in how we ask questions. There’s a difference between asking questions that allow you to truly hear what someone is saying, and asking questions because you’re searching for certain types of responses.

Digging deeper, goes beyond “I love it!” or “I wouldn’t change a thing”. People are coming back to you for a reason, and these reasons can help you enhance what you’re offering, and can also inspire you to come up with creative and engaging solutions to address other needs that you’re currently not addressing.

Tips and examples

Good questions are:

Unbiased
Empowering
Provide a safe space for the person to feel comfortable responding to
Stretch the person who is responding

I’ve highlighted the last point for a reason. Here’s an example:

Back in 2015, I facilitated a few focus groups for a client, a nonprofit that provides social justice oriented feminist leadership for young women of color. The focus groups were for the organization’s 6-week summer leadership program for young women of color in the New York City area. The organization wanted to know, among other things, how effective the program had been that summer.

Okay, sounds easy. I did a few site visits during the 5th week of the program to facilitate the focus groups. I had my questions ready based on the evaluation questions the organization sought out to explore. During the first focus group, I asked “Looking back on everything you’ve learned during the past 5 weeks, can you share something that you would change?” Some of the responses I got looked similar to “I loved everything!” or “I wouldn’t change a thing” or “Everything was good”.

Initially, I chalked it up to the participants being teenagers. Then I realized they were responding this way because of HOW I asked the question.

So, I tried a different approach for the second and third focus groups:

Looking back on everything you’ve learned during this program, if you could rebuild this program from the ground up, based on your own needs and interests, what would it look like?

(more…)

8 Feb, 2017

Try This: Roll The Dice

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T19:05:03-04:00February 8th, 2017|Categories: Research & Evaluation|Tags: program evaluation, Try This|0 Comments

Last month I shared The World Cafe as an activity you can use to engage participants outside of traditional means of collecting data. Today, let’s look at one activity you can use to guide participants in making sense of it all and drawing their own conclusions.

“Rolling the dice” usually means “let’s see what happens”. For this activity, it takes on a whole new meaning.

(Though technically, “making sense of it all and drawing your own conclusions” could also mean “seeing what happens”, but humor me for a bit.)

Here’s what you need

Two boxes that are roughly the same size
12 sheets of paper
A marker
Tape
Tape recorder

Ways to use this activity

I’ve used this activity in two ways: facilitating focus groups and data interpretation meetings.

Focus groups are generally used to gather feedback, and I’ve been asked to facilitate them as part of a program’s evaluation. In this context, each side of the die represents an evaluation question posed to the focus group.

In the context of a data interpretation meeting (also known as a “data party”), each side of the die either illustrates a piece of quantitive data (such as percentages from a survey or a report connected to the evaluation) or a piece of qualitative data (such as themes identified and coded from transcribing responses from a focus group). In simplest terms, coding identifies themes occurring across focus groups, informant interviews, observation notes, etc. With coding you can identify overarching themes as well as themes specific to the group or people in question, and this can be illustrated as a quote, percentage, etc.

Let’s create our dice

Take one sheet of paper
For a focus group: Write out an evaluation question you want to pose to the group
For a data party: Write out a theme you coded
tape the sheet of paper to one side of a die
Repeat for each side until all sides are covered

And that’s it.

Now, let’s see this in action

(more…)

12 Jan, 2017

Try This: The World Cafe

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T19:02:13-04:00January 12th, 2017|Categories: Research & Evaluation|Tags: program evaluation, Research, Try This|0 Comments

What’s the first image that comes to mind when you think of a focus group?

Mostly likely a small group of people–typically between 8-12 in size–gathered around a table, responding to a facilitator’s questions while being recorded. There may be some snacks involved.

Focus groups are a qualitative data activity used to gather feedback on a product, program or service from a group of people who have some type of commonality, such as age, race, gender, work experience, etc. The information they share can help the organizations or businesses gain a better understanding of why something is working, why it’s not working, and how that something impacts their lived experience.

If you’ve ever facilitated a focus group, you might know how boring they can be. And if you’ve been in a focus group, you definitely know how boring they can be. But what I’ve noticed is this: Focus groups are not boring, technically. It’s how they are structured that makes them boring. There are more engaging ways to conduct a focus group. One of those methods is the World Cafe.

First, some background

From The World Café: Living Knowledge through Conversations that Matter, the World Cafe is a methodology that invites large group dialogue. While in a basic focus group, participants are asked a question and discuss it openly, the World Cafe takes it a step further by allowing for a larger group of participants to be in the space. While they are discussing the question amongst themselves, the conversation flows more freely because it’s a conversation amongst the group rather than the group responding directly to the facilitator. Also, the group is helping the facilitator collect data in a more dynamic, participatory way.

Based on recommended World Cafe design principles, the focus of the World Cafe:

Set the context– What is the purpose for bringing people into the space, and what do you (and the group) want to achieve?
Create hospitable space– Pay attention to how the space is set up. Is it comfortable and inviting? If accessibility is a need, does the space function so that those with certain needs are comfortable in the space?
Explore questions that matter– You can explore a single question or you can develop questions that build on each other. Either way, you’ll be able to synthesize the data to explore common themes
Encourage everyone’s contribution– Encourage everyone to participate in ways that work for them. While some find it easier to express themselves verbally, others may find it better to draw or simply listen
Connect diverse perspectives– The key to the World Cafe is sharing perspectives. When participants move about the room (more on this later), they’re meeting new people, seeing ideas and thoughts that have been generated, and sharing new insights
Listen together for patterns and insights– Shared listening is the key factor in the success of a World Cafe. This is the way to look for themes. Encourage people to listen for what is not being spoken along with what is being shared
Share collective discoveries– Once the World Cafe is complete, invite participants to reflect on patterns, themes and questions expressed and to share them with the larger group

Here’s a video explanation of the process.

Here’s what you’ll need:

(more…)

2 Nov, 2016

Ask Nicole: What’s the Best Way to Deliver Bad News?

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T18:57:13-04:00November 2nd, 2016|Categories: Research & Evaluation|Tags: Ask Nicole, program evaluation|0 Comments

ig-post-3

If you have a question that you’d like to share with the Raise Your Voice community , contact me.

It’s the worst thing ever. That moment when you’ve been working with a client, community members, or some other form of stakeholder, and you have to bring the bad news.

I recently got this email from a nonprofit professional (and FYI: I’ve removed identifying information):

My nonprofit has created a program that seeks to increase the importance of physical activity among young indigenous youth in a rural community where there’s a lack of access to gyms and other places that would make it easier for youth to be more active. The stakeholders were expecting that the activities included in the program would resonate with the youth. In my nonprofit, I’ve been charged to carry out an evaluation of this program. We used surveys and focus groups with the youth participants. The results of the evaluation were that the participants weren’t interested in the activities, which aligned with the lack of participation. In fact, the results showed that the participants have developed more creative means to get in physical activity, but they brought up the need for other quality of life services that the program wasn’t addressing. The results could potentially impact the funding that was given to this program, as the funders were expecting that the program would be a success. What’s the best way to handle this?

Dealing with funders and leadership can be tricky, and nonprofits know all too well the stress of proving that a program or service is successful to stakeholders.

So, how do you share unexpected results in a way that is diplomatic and addresses concern head on?

Make it participatory from the start

I’ve worked with clients who had the expectation that I would come in, ready to go, with all the surveys, focus group questions, and in-depth interviews scheduled. They just want someone to come in and do the work for them. When I noticed this happening, I began to push back against working with clients in this way, and in encouraging current clients and potential clients in developing a participatory way of working together. From determining data collection tools to developing questions to ask participants (and even getting everyone together to interpret the data), when you make feedback gathering participatory from the start, it creates buy-in, puts everyone on the same page, and makes everything more transparent. When people are more involved, it makes this process more fun (at least for me), and everyone learns in the process.

And here’s a secret: When you make it participatory, it improves the likelihood that recommendations from the evaluation are actually implemented.

Address expectations and potential consequences

When you ask your stakeholders what they intend the outcome of their program to be, also ask this:

“What if what we’re expecting doesn’t happen?”

Ideally, we create programs or services based on theory, research, and what’s happen in our community. It builds the foundation to do some meaningful work. Can you believe there are nonprofits actually create programs or services because it just sounds like a good idea? You’d be surprised. So, can we really feel some type of way when we get results that we weren’t expecting, and in the case of the nonprofit above, it sounds like a program was created to address a need that the community has already dealt with.

But when we follow the theory, research, and community input, yet the outcome is still not what we’re expecting?

Determine if it really is bad

(more…)

Reproductive Justice: Your Struggles, Your Recommendations [INFOGRAPHIC]

And now, let’s take a look at the infographic:

Try This: Ask Better Questions

Tips and examples

Looking back on everything you’ve learned during this program, if you could rebuild this program from the ground up, based on your own needs and interests, what would it look like?

Try This: Roll The Dice

Here’s what you need

Ways to use this activity

Let’s create our dice

Now, let’s see this in action

Try This: The World Cafe

First, some background

Here’s what you’ll need:

Ask Nicole: What’s the Best Way to Deliver Bad News?

Make it participatory from the start

Address expectations and potential consequences

Determine if it really is bad

This Is A Custom Widget