Name
Breakout Session 4F: Participatory Evaluation: An Effective Tool in Enabling Change
Date & Time
Wednesday, July 26, 2023, 10:00 AM - 10:45 AM
Location Name
Room 208
Country of Submission
Argentina, Brazil
Description

Across the world, the pandemic caused a sudden and deep shift in educational service delivery to individuals with disabilities and their families. A year into the pandemic, a diverse group of professionals came together at the request and funding from Fe Y Alegria, a large organization with extensive services across Ecuador, to evaluate their efforts to respond to this shift and to suggest the way forward. This presentation presents the process of evaluation which was participatory in design. A dynamic and responsive process was followed with each step building on the previous. It began with surveys, direct observation of intervention sessions, and conversations with each family and professional team. The next step was to provide suggestions, demonstrations, resources, discussion, and internalization through guided application of principles shared. Throughout, the consultants encouraged discussion with all team members, ensuring that all could interact in ways most comfortable to them. The evaluation team constantly demonstrated many important principles of appropriate and effective service delivery in their manner of engagement with children, family and professionals. Families and professionals from the organization were active collaborators in the evaluation of their own learning and generation of recommendations for the organization. The collaborative and reflective process resulted in greater participation particularly by the therapists and family members in the process of reflection, feedback and planning - first steps toward effective and sustained change.