PAN's Research and Evaluation Treehouse

While research and evaluation are different, they share many similarities, especially when thinking about participatory methods. We think of research and evaluation like two different trees with different origins, intertwined in methods and analysis, that separate again in what they can tell you and how their information is shared.

PAN’s Research and Evaluation department has put together a Treehouse to share resources that can be helpful for both evaluation and research. Building on the tree metaphor – the Treehouse sits on the limbs between both the Research and the Evaluation Tree and provides a space for us to come together to learn and build our capacity in both of these areas. We will highlight new research and evaluation resources every six months that cover five important phases of work:

Fertile Ground: Supporting teams and processes
Seeds: Ideas and approaches
Sprouts: Planning
Sapling: Methods
Mature Tree: Analysis and knowledge sharing

	Peer leadership in research and evaluation: A collection of videos and tools highlighting how important the meaningful engagement of, and leadership by, people with lived experience is in research and evaluation. Negotiating information sharing in community based research: A blog post highlighting how the Making it Work Research team navigates different priorities like academic publications, ownership of data and transparency. Making Allyship Work: Allyship Perspectives in a Community-Based Research Study: Read about our submission to the Journal of Indigenous HIV Research and how allyship shows up in the Making it Work Research Study. The Basics of Community-Based Research: Part 1: The first in a series of “CBR Basics”, this blog post shares some of the ‘what’ and ‘why’ about community based research.

	Participatory Evaluation Whiteboard Video: A short video describing participatory evaluation and sharing tips and tools. Manitoba Community Event-Based STBBI Testing Toolkit: A toolkit developed by the Manitoba Harm Reduction Network to increase access to STBBI testing in community. Researcher’s Handbook: This handbook is built on the experiences of Peer Researchers and is a guide for research teams to meaningfully engage with people with lived experience. It includes topics like recruitment, onboarding, and supporting Peer Researchers. Balancing Rigor and Relevance in literature review: Development of Guiding Principles and Practices for People with Lived and Living Experience in Community Based Organizations: Literature reviews are often an important step at the beginning of a project, but there are challenges that make them responsive to community. This blog post describes a unique approach that PHSA’s Collective Impact Network took to a literature review that

	Strong Connections: Community and Researchers Working Together: Here we highlight a series of resources that can help both organizations and researchers think through what to do and how to work together when working together on research. From Theory to Practice: The Challenges and Opportunities of Doing Participatory Evaluation: This blog post details PAN’s experience with participatory evaluation and shares recommendations and resources to help teams understand how to engage in participatory evaluation. Qualitative Coding Resources: Visit this page for a host of resources about qualitative data analysis, including videos about qualitative coding, and links to helpful resources.

	Treehouse Implementation Science Guide: This guide is a primer to implementation science. It will help you understand the basics and get your implementation science research going. Decolonizing Methodologies: A Conversation: In this series of videos Sherri Pooyak of the AHA Centre shares her wisdom about decolonizing methodologies and doing research in good ways with Indigenous communities. Indigenizing Survey Methods: This blog post shares learnings from the Making it Work Research Team and their work to create an Indigenous Realist Evaluation Survey to understand why, when, how, and for whom community based services work best.

	Equitable online access for information sharing: These resources explore a community-centred approach to increasing digital access in your community and can inspire us to ensure our move to digital research and knowledge transfer/translation and exchange is as equitable and inclusive as possible. Team Discussion Tool: Supporting Teams to Build a Common Understanding about Information Sharing and Data Stewardship for Evaluation Projects: A PAN-developed discussion framework that can be helpful for teams to talk about and establish a clear understanding of each other’s needs when working on evaluation projects. PAN’s HIV Housing Toolkit: As part of the Positive Living Positive Homes Project, PAN created an online Housing Toolkit as a resource for people living with HIV. There are many helpful resources housed within the toolkit, and this blogpost helps highlight some of the most used.

Questions? Feedback? Resources to share? Get in touch!
Joanna Mendell, Director of Research and Evaluation, [email protected]