8 Aug, 2018

Try This: Curb Your Evaluation Anxiety

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T20:15:34-04:00August 8th, 2018|Categories: Research & Evaluation|Tags: Capacity Building, program evaluation, Try This|0 Comments

With my program and evaluation clients, I offer the Evaluation Capacity Measure. It’s an assessment created by Ann Price of Community Evaluation Solutions , and I’ve revised it a bit to include some open-ended questions. The assessment assesses an organization’s current capacity to evaluate its programs, strategies and services and assesses its current support around evaluative thinking. Everyone from organizational leadership to board of director members are encouraged to take the assessment.

This assessment helps me to see what the current needs are, and it also gives clients a sense of what we can work on together in the evaluation capacity building process. I offer it to clients first as a baseline, then towards the end of our partnership together. Whether it’s a short-term or long-term project, clients like knowing their staff’s general views on evaluation, and how the process can be aligned with their respective roles and organizational mission and strategy. (At times, they may notice that what they expected to score lower on is higher than expected, and vice versa).

I recently administered the assessment for a new client, whose staff works remotely and is comprised of several departments that work individually and collectively on several programs and strategies. Leading up to sending the assessment to her colleagues, the staff member leading the project with me shared her nervousness about what the results may reveal about her staff, but is excited to see how the results can influence how they can proceed with their evaluation priorities.

The goal of program evaluation is to 1) see if your program is performing in the way it’s intended to and 2) facilitate organizational learning and improvement. In general, people tend to experience anxiety when they’re being evaluated. It’s like when you waited in a line with your classmates to see which kickball team captain would choose you for their team. You want the best players on your team, and the captains are sizing you up. Who is known to kick the farthest? Who has the capability to catch the ball mid-air? Who can run the fastest?

And when you’re last to be picked, it makes you feel a way. “Why wasn’t I one of the earlier picks?”, you asked. More often the not, the team captains probably chose their team based on who they’re friends with, but there’s a lot of emotional reactions that may come up.

You get into the real world of adulting, and the feeling is still there. This time, it surfaces when you’re meeting with your supervisor for you mid-year or annual review. You think you’re performing well in most areas, until you discover (through someone else’s perspective) that you’re not.

In “Strategies for Managing Evaluation Anxiety: Toward a Psychology of Program Evaluation” (American Journal of Evaluation, Vol. 23 Issue 3, 2002), Stewart Donaldson, Laura E. Googler, Michael Striven dubbed the term “excessive evaluation anxiety” (or XEA). Symptoms of XEA include:

Lack of access to important information and data
Compliance and cooperation problems
False reporting
Effects on bias and validity
Reduced utilization of evaluation findings.

This can lead to stakeholders behaving in ways that can destroy the credibility of evaluation findings (and of evaluators). When the findings of a program’s evaluation yield that it’s not performing in the way it was intended, the blame game can happen. Instead of falling victim to XEA, how can you and your staff become more open to viewing the process as a learning experience?

To give you a taste of the Evaluation Capacity Measure I give to my clients (and to help jumpstart the conversation with your staff around evaluation anxiety), here are some questions you can walk your staff through:

Here’s what you need:

Flip chart paper, chalkboards, or walls
Note cards
Pens or pencils

Designate five open areas around the room. Each area will have one question at the top of the flip chart paper, chalkboard, or wall.

Give staff enough time to answer the questions thoughtfully . When time is up, have staff place their note cards under the designated question.

Next, divide up your staff so that each question has several eyes on it. Have staff place the note cards into themes, grouping similar responses together.

Last, have staff do a “walk-around”, where they can view the themes for each question. To close out the exercise, discuss the themes with staff and create an action plan to address the themes.

The steps:

Have your staff answer the following questions alone on note cards:

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14 Feb, 2018

Try This: Appreciative Inquiry

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T20:11:01-04:00February 14th, 2018|Categories: Research & Evaluation|Tags: program evaluation, Try This|0 Comments

Have you ever noticed that when you go looking for problems, more problems tend to appear?

It’s like peeling back the layers of an onion and chopping it. It’s never-ending and your eyes water in the process.

The same goes for conducting community needs assessments. When designed to identify the pressing needs of a community, they often focus on deficits, which doesn’t do much for community morale. Continuous focus on the problem increases the likelihood of seeing the problem everywhere. This isn’t to say that communities should turn a blind eye to what’s happening, but there’s something to be said about raising awareness of this practice, as it can immobilize communities to create change.

A while back, I wrote a blog post on asset mapping as a tool for community organizing and engagement. One reason why asset mapping and similar strengths-based tools are growing in popularity is due to an increasingly mindset shift away from solely deficits-based to identifying community strengths. Whereas deficits-based practices are problem-focused, needs driven, and questions what’s missing, strengths-based practices are opportunity-focused, strengths driven, and identifies what is currently available that can be built upon.

Today, let’s look at another strengths- based practice, appreciative inquiry.

What’s appreciative inquiry?

Appreciative inquiry (AI) is strengths-based approach, developed by Dr. David Cooperrider in the 1980s. First used in organizational development and change, AI has helped institutions worldwide integrate the power of the strength-based approaches to multi-stakeholder innovation and collaborative design. It quickly gained ground in program evaluation following the 2006 release of Reframing Evaluation Through Appreciative Inquiry by Hallie Preskill and Tessie Catsambas.

AI focuses on identifying what is working well, analyzing why it is working well and then doing more of it. In other words, AI teaches us that an organization will grow in whichever direction that people in the organization focus their attention.

If this can be done in organizations, why not apply it to community change?

Here’s what you need:

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13 Oct, 2017

Try This: The Story of Me, The Story of Us, The Story of Now

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T19:57:47-04:00October 13th, 2017|Categories: Speaking & Facilitation|Tags: reproductive justice, Try This|0 Comments

“The Story of Me, The Story of Us, The Story of Now” is a reflective call to action process that frames our experiences, highlights the commonalities of our lived experiences, and connects our stories to the current social climate to promote action. I first learned of this process from Jamia Wilson. Jamia shared it with me as I was preparing to speech related to young women of color several years ago.

Here’s what you need:

Sheets of paper
Something to write with

The steps:

This process connects your personal story to current problems our communities are facing, and to the larger vision of a world we want.

Using the topic of Reproductive Justice:

The Story of Me: Share your story of how Reproductive Justice connects with your identities. Use a personal story that brought your attention to various reproductive oppressions and injustices.
The Story of Us: Share the current state of how reproductive injustices are impacting your communities. Use prompts such as “We live in a world where…” or “When I look around my community, I see…”. This can be related to policies that do more harm than good, lack of sex education in your school, or historical or current events such as the shackling of pregnant prisoners during labor and delivery or involuntary sterilization of women of color
The Story of Now: Share your vision for reproductive freedom. Use prompts such as “We will have reproductive justice when…” What would be the end game to have Reproductive Justice? What would that look like in your community?

You can do this process alone or in a group. If in a group, have participants identify the commonalities in their stories and develop a strong call to action (CTA). Try this exercise and let me know how it goes.

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RAISE YOUR VOICE: Share one way you can use The Story of Me, The Story of Us, The Story of Now process below in the comments section.

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9 Aug, 2017

Try This: Storytelling for Reproductive Justice

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T19:45:38-04:00August 9th, 2017|Categories: Equity & Justice|Tags: reproductive justice, Try This|0 Comments

(Image: Renee Bracey Sherman. Source)

“Reproductive Justice can be used as a theory for thinking about how to connect the dots in our lives. It is also a strategy for bringing together social justice movements. But also, it is a practice-a way of analyzing our lives through the art of telling our stories to realize our visions and bring fresh passions to our work.” ~ Loretta Ross, “What Is Reproductive Justice?” (Reproductive Justice Briefing Book: A primer on Reproductive Justice and Social Change)

Why is storytelling so powerful? Because it works. Before video, social media, and other media we use today, many of us remember listening to stories as children from our parents and grandparents. Stories resonate with us and helps us build powerful connections with others. Sharing our story also helps others to build compassion, especially when they haven’t had the same experience.

Storytelling isn’t something new when it comes to advancing Reproductive Justice. Testifying before political leaders, using social media, blogging, podcasting, or video, attending speak-outs, or simply sharing between close friends and loved ones are some examples of how storytelling can be used as an empowerment tool. And today’s exercise will hopefully do just that.

This exercise can be found in the We Are Brave Toolkit: Building Reproductive Autonomy and Voices for Equity, created by Western States Center (with a few adaptations from me). The exercise was co-authored by Karla Castaneda, Diego Hernandez, Oscar Tzintzun, and Rebecca Shine of Momentum Alliance in Portland, Oregon.

Here’s what you need:

Sheets of paper to write on (or notepads)
Writing utensils for each participant
Flip chart paper and markers
Chairs arranged in a circle (or have the participants seated on the floor in a circle if they are able to)

The steps:

There are several parts to this exercise, but I’m focusing on the writing portion. The writing prompt given is

“I am from a body that…”

Using the prompt, spend 15 minutes or so sharing how Reproductive Justice connects with your identities. Being a young person, person of color, woman, trans person, person living with a mental health diagnosis, coming from a poor background, living in a “red” or flyover state, are just some identities we can write about.

Here’s a slight adaptation: In 2011, I spoke on a Congressional Black Caucus panel on on young women of color and reproductive health activism. I wasn’t sure how to craft speech. Jamia Wilson shared this process of connecting my personal story to current problems our communities are facing, and to the larger vision of a world we want:

The Story of Me: Share your story of how Reproductive Justice connects with your identities (This is essentially the “I am from a body that…” prompt)
The Story of Us: Share the current state of how reproductive injustices are impacting your communities using the prompts “We live in a world where…” or the prompt “When I look around my community, I see…”
The Story of Now: Share your vision for reproductive freedom using the prompt “We will have reproductive justice when…”

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14 Jun, 2017

Try This: The A & B Conversation

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T19:43:28-04:00June 14th, 2017|Categories: Speaking & Facilitation|Tags: Facilitation, Try This, Workshops|0 Comments

(Image Source)

The A & B Conversation is a communication activity that focuses on healthy communication, conflict resolution, and gaining a different perspective on a situation. This activity can be used in a variety of settings, and today we’re going to focus on facilitating this activity in a workshop setting with adults and young people. This is even better if the participants consist of parents/guardians and their children.

Here’s what you need:

An even number of participants (for consistency, have the adult be Partner A and the young person be Partner B)
A timer
A list of scenarios ranging from conversations perceived to be easy to ones that may be more difficult, including:
- Asking for money to buy an item
- Failing a driver’s test
- Sneaking out past curfew
- Argument over discovery of a social media profile
- Choosing not to go to college
- Meeting with the school principal to discuss allegations of online bullying
- Asking for the meaning of song filled with sexually suggestive lyrics
- Finding condoms in jeans pockets while doing laundry
- Asking if one was a virgin on her/his wedding night
- Disclosing a pregnancy and having questions about terminating the pregnancy
- Disclosing one’s sexuality
- Being caught putting the date rape drug in a person’s drink

The steps:

As the facilitator, choose the scenario the partners will act out. Next, using the timer, have the partners act out the scenario for 2 minutes.

When the timer stops, reset it to 2 minutes, and have the partners switch roles. Have the partners improvise the same scenario, this time with the young person (Partner B) becoming the parent/guardian and the adult (Partner A) becoming the young person.

The follow-up:

After the final 2 minutes is up, have the partners process what took place using the following discussion questions:

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Try This: Curb Your Evaluation Anxiety

Here’s what you need:

The steps:

Try This: Appreciative Inquiry

What’s appreciative inquiry?

Here’s what you need:

Try This: The Story of Me, The Story of Us, The Story of Now

Here’s what you need:

The steps:

RAISE YOUR VOICE: Share one way you can use The Story of Me, The Story of Us, The Story of Now process below in the comments section.

Like this post? Subscribe to the Raise Your Voice newsletter to receive resources, advice, and tips to help you raise your voice for women and girls of color.

Try This: Storytelling for Reproductive Justice

Here’s what you need:

The steps:

“I am from a body that…”

Try This: The A & B Conversation

Here’s what you need:

The steps:

The follow-up:

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