The Positive Leadership Development Institute (PLDI) is a leadership development program for people living with HIV. One goal of the PLDI Alliance was to evaluate the program for inclusivity and cultural safety in a deliberate, specialized way. Having this goal resulted in the creation of The Culturally Safer HIV Leadership Training Project. The project took place over 18 months from 2022 to 2023 and was funded by Gilead.
Prior to the project, PLDI was (and still is) evaluating its training program for inclusivity and cultural safety to a certain point. At the end of each training module, all participants are asked to complete a post-training survey that measures their degree of satisfaction, overall experience, and what they learned. Questions surrounding inclusivity and cultural safety are included in the survey.
However, because of the PLDI Alliance’s commitment to Truth and Reconciliation and desire to learn more about the needs and sociocultural experiences of Indigenous and African, Caribbean, Black (ACB) community members, a more specialized evaluation approach felt necessary.
A word on evaluation in general
It is fair to say that evaluation can be considered a form of research. Evaluation is conducted to assess or appraise things like projects, programs, activities, and systems.
About the approach of peer evaluation
As a specialized approach within the broader approaches of community-based research (CBR) and participatory action research (PAR), using a peer evaluation approach is about empowering a group of people for whom a program or service is intended to benefit to be the ones to guide and perform the evaluation. It reflects the principles of the greater involvement/meaningful engagement of people living with HIV and AIDS (GIPA/MEPA).
Two roles for people living with HIV (PLHIV), and more specifically PLDI graduates, were created within the project to align with the peer evaluation approach:
1. A community advisory committee made of Indigenous and African, Caribbean, Black (ACB) PLDI graduates were at the decision-making table on how the peer evaluation framework should be structured and implemented. The advisory committee members guided what aspects of inclusivity and cultural safety are important to measure and how to measure them.
2. Peer evaluators (most of which also acted as advisory committee members) attended PLDI trainings as participants to experience the program and assessed the trainings by engaging evaluation methods and tools.
Within any given research approach are methods and tools. Here are some of the central methods and tools used in The Culturally Safer HIV Leadership Training Project:
Methods
The theme of the methods used, or methodology, was “participatory” which involved active involvement of the peer evaluators and advisory committee members through collaboration, shared decision-making, and sharing perspective.
Participatory Planning – The advisory committee members were involved in making decisions about how the evaluation should be designed, structured, and implemented.
Real-Time Evaluation – Peer evaluators attending a PLDI training assessed the training components and curriculum as the training was happening in real-time (sometimes also referred to as formative evaluation).
Survey – All peer evaluators and advisory committee members who participated in a PLDI training during the project had the opportunity to complete the same post-training survey as the standard participants.
Focus Groups – After peer evaluators completed a PLDI training that included the survey, they were provided the opportunity to verbally share more nuanced feedback through conversation and storytelling.
Tools
Peer evaluator manual – A printed manual was provided to the peer evaluators to score and document their training assessment as part of the real-time evaluation method.
Online survey platform – The PLDI post-training survey was able to be designed with flexibility and gets efficiently administered to ensure that user input/responses are quickly gathered, stored, analyzed, and reported.
Online meeting platform – The PLDI Alliance coordination team and the community advisory committee were able to meet on a regular basis from different geographic locations by meeting virtually.
Upon completion of the training evaluation and project activities by the peer evaluators and advisory committee, the information generated was analyzed, synthesized, summarized, documented, and reported. Here is a visual overview of the value created.
Another valuable outcome of the Culturally Safer Leadership Training Project was a PLDI abstract being accepted for oral presentation at CAHR 2024 in London, ON. Visit this blog on the PLDI website to learn more about project, the CAHR presentation, and the recommendations put forward by the peer evaluators and advisory committee.
In summary, using peer evaluation as a specialized approach can create value because it actively and meaningfully involves the people for whom a program or service is intended to benefit.
Questions? Feedback? Get in touch!
This post was prepared for PAN’s Research and Evaluation Treehouse by:
Monte Strong, Research Coordinator, [email protected]