Learning for effective practice

I was the plenary speaker at Mediation North’s autumn conference in November this year.

My intention was to help staff and practitioners be clear on the difference between monitoring, evaluation, and assessing impact – and to show how mediators can bring in the evidence that services need to show their success.

It was something of a risk to make a plenary speech on the subject of monitoring and evaluation!, so I was pleased with the positive feedback fom the plenary and from the subsequent workshop. If you want to download my powerpoint, please visit the Framework site – this is the link.

My sense was that people welcomed a structured framework in which to think about how they demonstrate effectiveness – and the slightly different mind-sets that are needed when approaching monitoring, evaluation, and impact.

A recent Charity Evaluation Service report stressed the importance of evaluating for learning, not just for accountability. This matches a theme close to my heart. How far can an external evaluation have as an outcome the development of the organisation’s capacity to monitor and evaluate itself?

In other words, how can the evaluation leave the organisation in a better place to continuing its self-assessment and learning? Here is a paper, Evaluation for learning, in which I have put some of these ideas together.