229583 W.K. Kellogg Foundation New Tools New Visions2 project: Utilizing participatory evaluation methods to inform best practices among community-academic partnerships

Monday, November 8, 2010

Mondi Mason, PhD, MPH , Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA
Cassandra Arroyo, PhD , Faculty, Walden University, Minneapolis, MN
Simone M. Charles, PhD , Environmental Health Sciences, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA
Padmini Shankar, PhD, RD , Department of Health and Kinesiology, Georgia Southern University, College of Health and Human Sciences, Statesboro, GA
Emmanuel Clottey, MPH , Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA
Raymona Lawrence, DrPH, MPH , Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA
In 2008, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation funded four African American communities in Georgia as part of a three year project entitled New Tools, New Visions 2. The intent of the project is to build community capacities to: a) improve health and eliminate health disparities, b) enhance and/or create community-academic partnerships between local communities and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU), and c) develop community-based participatory research (CBPR) projects to address local conditions that have led to and continue to perpetuate health disparities. The external evaluation, being conducted by the Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health at Georgia Southern University, utilizes participatory methods to assist the partnerships with telling their stories, evaluate their partnership's efforts, and build evaluation capacity. With its roots in empowerment education, participatory evaluation aligns with CBPR approaches as a way of engaging community members in the evaluation process in order to provide the insider's point of view. The purpose of this presentation is to 1) provide an overview of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's New Tools New Visions 2 project, 2) describe the participatory evaluation methods that are being utilized across multiple sites, and 3) highlight lessons learned about building trust and evaluation capacity, while developing and maintaining consistent protocols in order to inform best practices for the development of community-academic partnerships, specifically among communities aligned with HBCUs.

Learning Areas:
Conduct evaluation related to programs, research, and other areas of practice

Learning Objectives:
1. Describe the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s New Tools New Visions project. 2. Identify participatory evaluation methods being utilized in a multi-site project. 3. Discuss how evaluation findings are being utilized to inform best practices for the development of community-academic partnerships.

Keywords: Evaluation, Community-Based Partnership

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am the lead evaluator for this project and have collected and analyzed data, and written reports about the findings.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.