This webpage is part of the broader Equitable Community Engagement Guide for Disability Inclusion. This Guide can also be accessed as a downloadable document: Equitable Community Engagement Guide for Disability Inclusion (MS Word).
It is important that we commit ourselves to continuous improvement and learning. Evaluating your community engagement is one process to advance this commitment. Evaluation should focus both on the impact of the community engagement as well as the effectiveness of the processes.
Rowe and Frewer's "Nine Criteria Approach" to Evaluation
| Criteria | Evaluation |
|---|---|
| Representativeness | Do participants comprise a broadly representative sample of the affected community? |
| Independence | Was the community engagement conducted in an independent, unbiased manner? |
| Early involvement | How early was the community engagement during the decision-making and implementation process? |
| Influence | Did the output of the community engagement have a genuine impact on the project? |
| Transparency | Was the community able to see and understand what was going on and how decisions were being made? |
| Resources | Did participants have access to appropriate and sufficient resources to enable them to fulfill their designated role? |
| Task definition | Was the nature and scope of the participation task clearly defined so participants knew what was required of them and why? |
| Structured decision-making | Did the mechanisms of the participation exercise allow for fair and accurate information exchange? |
| Cost-effectiveness | Was the public engagement cost-effective from he point of view of the sponsors? |
Source: A White Paper on Challenges and Advancements in Evaluating Public Participation (PDF)
Reflexivity
Evaluation can also include the practice of reflexivity, or acknowledging your role in the community engagement. Ask yourself how your power and postionality may have impacted the work, what preconceptions you held during the community engagement, and how you can continue your individual commitment to learning as a tool to improve your community engagement.