Empowerment Evaluation: An Introduction

2007-04-04T16:56:00.000-07:00

The Health Trust invited Fetterman & Associates to introduce empowerment evaluation to their staff members and explore the role of evaluation for their three initiatives: obesity, healthy aging, and increasing access to health care. Empowerment evaluation will be used to further refine and clarify these initiatives.

The session began with an introduction to empowerment evaluation.

Fetterman & Associates highlighted the 3 step model of: 1) mission; 2) taking stock; and 3) planning for the future. Examples were provided from throughout the world, including the Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, and the United Kingdom. However, domestic examples were the most relevant examples concerning the current work at hand.

Dr. Elizabeth Iida helped to plan and orchestrate the meeting, providing Dr. Fetterman with the required background information needed to tailor the presentation to the Health Trust's needs.
Amor Santiago, Todd Hansen (President-elect and CEO), and Paul Hepfer listened intently and then engaged in a dialogue about how best to use evaluation as a tool.

Dr. Kathleen Roe, chair of San Jose State University's Health Science Department, provided insightful comments to help move the group process along, resulting in the adoption of empowerment evaluation at various stages of the Health Trust's development. (See her publications.)

Dr. Fetterman concluded the discussion with a portrait of how empowerment evaluation could satisfy short-term return on investment (ROI) questions, as well as respond to long term and more elusive outcome issues.

The next steps in the process will consist of a series of workshops designed to engage the Trust and build evaluation capacity from within. Contact Dr. Fetterman for additional details at: profdavidf@yahoo.com.