7. Evaluation

Continually engaging in the evaluation process allows you to constantly modify your program to be more effective. You should constantly be evaluating your program on a number of levels. Evaluate your program’s visibility in the community. This provides a means of determining whether past marketing effects are providing the awareness you need. Evaluate your success in meeting goals. This may involve surveying the community through mail surveys, telephone interviews, personal interviews, and focus groups. You could also use less traditional ways: monitoring sales of cigarettes or the levels of environmental tobacco smoke in public places. Evaluate the effectiveness of your methodology. When evaluating whether your methods are effective in achievinggoals and objectives, review other literature and program designs to find out if there is a better, more cost-effective way of doing the same thing. In addition, reviewing current literature provides a means of finding evaluation materials for testingcommunity outcomes of changing knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs. Remember, when using literature, though to carefully review surrounding circumstances for other programs, as what may have worked in their situations, may not work in your situation, and vice-versa. Engage your community in the evaluation process, especially if local community members have been active in implementation. Allowing community members to actively evaluate your program reinforces the idea that they are important to the program process. Once you have results from evaluations, begin implementing changes that will better your program. Again, involving community members in this process allows the community to gain a sense of ownership in the program, increasing momentum and pride in what you are trying to accomplish. Finally, and this point must be emphasized again and again, use the results of your evaluations to change what needs to be changed. If a particular community event was well received and attended, incorporate it intothe unchangeable portion of your methodology. On the opposite end, if 80% of respondents indicated that they were not aided by a particular brochure, change the brochure to better serve your population. Just remember that there is no such thing as the perfect program; one can always make it better and more effective.

Skill Areas:
A Ability to engage community members in ongoing evaluation activities

B Ability to engage community members and local leaders in using evaluation findings to make program-related decisions

C Ability to evaluate programs in terms of community-level outcomes

D Ability to evaluate programs in terms of the processes used to achieve goals and objectives

E Ability to evaluate program designs by utilizing existing research to learn what works and under what circumstances

F Ability to use data generated through evaluation activities to improve program performance