empowerment evaluation

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Empowerment evaluation is a collaborative and participatory model of evaluation, recommended for evaluating community programs. It has a distinctly political intention- to build the capacity of participants to evaluate themselves and improve their programs, using a form of self-evaluation and reflection. The evaluator acts as a guide or facilitator of the process.

 

papers & reports

The following papers and reports discuss empowerment evaluation and its application.

 Miller, Wayne; Lennie, June; Yeatman, Heather 2006, Challenges and issues in applying empowerment evaluation principles in practice: case study of the evaluation of a national school breakfast program in Evaluation in emerging areas: Australasian Evaluation Society International Conference, Australasian Evaluation Society, Lyneham, ACT

This paper describes the use and benefits of empowerment evaluation principles, as shown in the evaluation of the Good Start Breakfast Club, a national school breakfast program for primary schools in Australia. After describing the program and the evaluation process, the authors use the 10 empowerment evaluation principles to assess the findings from the program's evaluation workshops in New South Wales.

Cox PJ, Keener D, Woodard TF, Wandersman AH 2009, Evaluation for improvement: a seven-step empowerment evaluation approach for violence prevention organizations , Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

This manual is designed to help violence prevention organisations hire an empowerment evaluator.   This person will assist them in building their evaluation capacity through a learn-by-doing process of evaluating their own strategies.

Fetterman D 2010, Empowerment evaluation; collaboration, action research and a case example, Stanford University

This is an academic discussion of empowerment evaluation, commenting on its history, ethics and steps in the process.  A case study is provided and discussion made of some concerns and caveats.