Measuring change together
Over the past few months, Hands Up Mallee have been working together with community members, service partners and government to build an Understanding Measurement Evaluation and Learning Framework (U-MEL). A U-MEL is one of the tools that can be used to guide and track the work of place-based change initiatives. It is an approach that helps people working on place-based change to:
refine and adapt the collective impact strategy along the way,
capture knowledge,
understand what is emerging,
measure progress,
and be accountable to the community, partners and government.
what has happened so far?
Workshop 1
In order to develop the U-MEL Hands Up Mallee have activated a Measurement Evaluation and Learning Team (the MELT) consisting of community members, local service providers and government. With support from Clear Horizon, Hands Up Mallee have been running workshops and coaching sessions to support the diversity of our MELT to work together through this process.
Collaborating with people from community, services and government is an important part of Hands Up Mallee’s collective impact approach. The different lenses that members of the MELT bring to our initiative ensures we are seeing the system from many vantage points; while working to ensure that change we work towards is positive and avoids unintended negative consequences.
The first area that our MELT team has worked together on is adapting a Theory of Change. Creating a tailored Theory of Change will help us envision what conditions, supports, actions and changes our community need in order to achieve better outcomes for children and young people aged 0-25 years so that they can thrive.
A draft or “strawperson” Theory of Change was presented to the MELT and they were asked to work through what was presented, pull it apart and reform it as a better representation of where our community wants to create change. During the workshop there was a great sense of sharing and working collaboratively, generating important insights that have helped strengthen and clarify what achieving these outcomes looks like in the context of our community. Hearing what our community has told us in these workshops and incorporating it ensures that the HUM U-MEL is something that truly belongs to and represents everyone in our community.
Importantly, during this session, the Theory of Change was renamed Journey of Change based on feedback from Aunty Jenene who highlighted that this process was a path to walk together with a shared destination.
“Aboriginal people need to be able to see themselves in this story, and these destinations for their children”
Participants also highlighted that when the Journey of Change is developed it will be crucial to present it to the community in a visual, easy to understand way that people can see themselves in, otherwise they will not be ready to join us on the journey. If the community can see themselves in the Journey of Change they will be empowered to play a role in creating the changes needed and excited to walk the journey together.
Workshop 2
A second U-MEL workshop was held on October 20th. The meeting was a chance for the MELT to review the next iteration of the Journey of Change, and further shape the key components of the Measurement, Evaluation and Learning Framework, which will guide the HUM initiative in monitoring progress towards high-level outcomes.
Prior to the workshop Clear Horizon provided coaching support to the MELT to begin building the Principles and identify Key Audiences for reporting, providing useful groundwork for workshop activities. As with Workshop one the MELT brought their unique perspectives to build on the Key Audiences and Principles, and began to identify Key Evaluation Questions and Measures.
Participants were clear that the U-MEL should be passionate, relevant, rigorous and designed to fit the resources available. They want to be able to use data and evidence, incorporating numbers and stories to generate purpose and action and amplify our impact. They also feel it is essential that community experiences and perspectives inform decision-making, learning and evaluation. They believe that participatory and creative approaches help build engagement, trust and agency across the initiative and community. They want to ensure that data and stories are gathered in ethical and respectful ways and that a culture of two-way learning for better understanding is cultivated. Participants also feel it is important that Aboriginal communities and partners are central, and their rights for self-determination are supported. Participants asked that data and findings be shared in accessible, timely and useable ways. They recognise there is a need to balance community and funders’ evaluation and reporting needs.
WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW?
We are currently working with the MELT to choose which measurements and stories we will need to collect to best report on our work, and how we are progressing along the Journey of Change. We have also worked together to get a clearer picture of who we need to report to - community, services, funders, and three levels of government.
With the MELT Hands Up Mallee is in the process of clarifying:
Principles to guide the way we will work together to do the U-MEL work
Measures we will choose to help us see how we are making progress
Key Evaluation Questions to help us gather evidence to see if we are doing the right things and doing things right, and to help us report to the community, participants and funders.
Together the Journey of Change, Principles, Measures and Key Evaluation Questions make our U-MEL Framework.
Where to next?
In the coming weeks Clear Horizon will provided further coaching support to the MELT to firm up the Key Evaluation Questions and Measures to support regular evaluation and reporting to our identified audiences.
The finalised U-MEL Framework will be presented for endorsement by Hands Up Mallee on December 17th. When the U-MEL has been finalised a simplified, community-friendly version will be constructed using visual representation so it can be broadly communicated and used. This framework, built in partnership between community, services and government will better place Hands Up Mallee to measure, evaluate and report on our progress and learning over the years ahead.
“It will help create a story from the heart of the work, showing why we are on this journey together”