Program evaluations are more relevant when conducted by the people directly involved in the programs and members of the communities they serve. Learn how empowerment and participatory evaluation can help community programs deliver more effective services!

With this book, you’ll examine theoretical models, empirical investigations, and case studies that highlight important aspects of empowerment and participatory evaluation in community programs. The first half of the book presents frameworks and tools for empowerment and participatory evaluation, with an emphasis on transferring skills and building capacity. The remaining chapters examine specific efforts to implement empowerment and participatory evaluation with a range of stakeholders, highlighting the ways in which community members collaborated with evaluators and were actively engaged in the evaluation process.

Covering various types of evaluations across a range of urgent social issues, this book offers practical steps for implementing evaluations and presents theoretical models as well as applied examples. The issues that Empowerment and Participatory Evaluation of Community Interventions addresses include:

• challenges faced by community-based organizations in conducting evaluations of their initiatives—and solutions to those challenges, including the creation and implementation of an appropriate outcomes model
• ways to build capacity for participatory evaluation within community initiatives
• ways to promote the success and accountability of community programs
• how collaborative process evaluation can improve HIV prevention services
• evaluation techniques that illustrate the benefits of a collaborative approach—with a case study of the Conflict Resolution in Schools Programs
• a pilot study in which empowerment evaluation principles are used to evaluate the American Red Cross of Greater Chicago’s Youth Leadership Training Series (a program designed to train youth volunteers)

Presenting important information on program evaluation, community-based interventions and community empowerment, empowerment/participatory evaluation, community psychology, collaborative partnerships, program improvement, utilization-focused evaluation, consultation, and more, Empowerment and Participatory Evaluation of Community Interventions is a resource that everyone involved in community psychology should have!