The Year in Review
This has been a year of growth and adaption for our evaluation work at PAN and the department continues to be very active on a number of evaluation programs, projects and fee-for-service contracts.
REACH Nexus
As part of PAN’s national evaluation role, we continue to develop the overarching evaluation framework for REACH Nexus as well as supporting evaluation planning, data collection, and analysis for various projects supported by REACH Nexus. This includes developing harmonized monitoring tools for REACH-funded projects, such as developing reporting tools for REACHing for Impact Testing Team Grant and the evaluation plans for our national stigma and testing work through PHAC CAF funding. You can learn more about PAN STBBI testing work by visiting our New testing technologies for STBBIs page.
Janice, Alfiya, Paul, and Leanne
An important milestone project by REACH Nexus is the I’m Ready research program. I’m Ready is an implementation science study where participants can access up to three free HIV self-test kits through an app and with accompanying option online peer navigation support. To prepare for the launch on June 2nd, PAN’s evaluation team worked to develop data collection tools and an evaluation plan using a RE-AIM implementation science framework. You can learn more about the RE-AIM Framework and implementation science through the Implementation Science Guide from our Research and Evaluation Treehouse.
Internal evaluation support
The PAN Evaluation Department is an ongoing resource for other PAN projects and programs. One big piece of work in this reporting period was supporting the renewal of PAN’s Members’ and Allies’ Survey (previously the Members’ and Stakeholders’ Survey. We changed the name this year because feedback we received from Indigenous partners advised that “stakeholder” does not adequately reflect the reality that Indigenous people have the ability to uphold their constitutional protected rights, making them rights holders on these lands rather than stakeholders. In this survey, we are interested in engaging partners and individuals who are allies to PAN’s work and feel this new name better reflects this). We have been working to develop an aggregate report demonstrating our survey findings since 2015. Stay tuned for the report.
The Research and Evaluation Teams supported the rollout out of the Safe Supply Survey. Leaders from PAN member organizations asked PAN to conduct this survey and aims to assess how safe supply can be improvement in BC and what supports PAN can provide to our member organizations. We have sent out the survey at two time points in 2020 and have shared the findings on our PAN Members and Safe Supply page.
The evaluation team supports other work across PAN related to fund development and grant writing. A big focus over the last year has been planning for our Organizational Stigma Assessment Cycle project and application to the Vancouver Foundation, which we are pleased to report was granted funding in the summer of 2021. We are looking forward to launching this project in the coming months.
With the continuation of the COVID-19 pandemic we have continued to support shifts in online program delivery and evaluation at PAN. Working with PAN’s Capacity Building Program, PLDI, and the Hepatitis C Leadership Program, the evaluation team has supported the development of data collection tools that account for a new mode of program delivery.
Personal Experiences of Stigma Survey
In support of another piece of PAN’s BC People Living with HIV Stigma Index, the Evaluation Department has continued to facilitate the Stigma Evaluation Working Group. This group has been supported by funding from the Community Action Initiative and was formed alongside the Stigma Intervention Deliberative Dialogue held in November 2019. As a working group, we have developed the Personal Experiences of Stigma Survey, an open tool that can capture intersectional experiences of stigma and can be used by a variety of communities or organizations who want to systematically gather stories and data of how people experience stigma.
Over the last year, we have piloted the tool with two community groups. Each site piloted the tool among at least 16 people who provided their feedback on the survey questions, the data collection process, and informed the final version of the tool. We are happy to announce that we will be launching this tool in the coming weeks and will invite community groups to use it in their work. Stay tuned for a webpage where you can learn more about the process of developing the survey and download the tool.
Fee-for-Service Evaluation Work
PAN continues its fee-for-service evaluation consultancy work. By taking on fee-for-service work that aligns with PAN’s mandate and mission we have been able to leverage our evaluation expertise and experience to grow evaluation capacity across BC and beyond. Between October 2020 and September 2021, PAN had the pleasure of providing evaluation supports and services to the following groups: 1) ANKORS: in support of its SUAP-funded harm reduction work; 2) Vancouver Sex Work Community Alliance; 3) the National PLDI Community Alliance; and the 4) Families in TRANSition Project at Central Toronto Youth Services.
Evaluation Capacity Building
PAN’s Evaluation Department continues to provide evaluation capacity building opportunities to its members and has given a number of presentations and written several blog posts related to evaluation over the last year.
- What do Evaluators Mean When They Speak of “Blue Marble Evaluation”?
- Measuring Impact of Advocacy – From Theory to Practice of Change – Part 1
- Measuring Impact of Advocacy – Part 2
- Check out the Findings from PAN’s 2020 BC Testing Needs Assessment!
As evaluators, we recognize our role in developing an equity-based approach to evaluation. As a team, we have been working on building internal capacity to incorporate Indigenous approaches to evaluation. Engagement in trainings organized by the Canadian Evaluation Society and the Indigenous Perspective Society have supported internal growth and learning within our team.
Treehouse
The Treehouse is a collaborative project between the Research and the Evaluation teams at PAN intended to demonstrate the interconnectedness of methods and approaches used in research and evaluation and to provide space for our members and allies to engage in capacity-building and learning on these topics.
Some of the resources that can be particularly relevant for evaluation include:
- Peer leadership in research and evaluation
- Participatory Evaluation Whiteboard Video
- Treehouse Implementation Science Guide and others.
We will be growing the tree by adding more resources in different areas of research and evaluation.
We want to sincerely thank all of the people who have supported the Evaluation Department’s work over the last year including the people with lived and living experiences, organizations and other allies and partners who have engaged with the projects we are supporting and leading. We also want to thank our very engaged and passionate staff team supporting this work over the last year — Alfiya Battalova, Paul Kerber, Leanne Zubowski, and Oralia Gómez-Ramírez (no longer at PAN). We are also grateful for funding and support from the REACH Nexus, the Community Action Initiative, the Provincial Health Services Authority, Vancouver Foundation, and our fee-for-service contracts all of whom have made this work possible.
For more information on Evaluation at PAN, contact Janice Duddy, Director of Evaluation and Research, [email protected]
Team Reports
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Message from PAN Leadership
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