aes19 International Evaluation Conference

Suzanne Evas (Department of Health and Human Services Victoria), Antoniette Bonaguro (Department of Health and Human Services Victoria)

The Department of Health and Human Services in Victoria is committed to including the voice of vulnerable children in program evaluation. However, accomplishing this is fraught with complications, including privacy and ethical risks, the difficulty of recruiting and interviewing very young children, and guardian consent for interviews or surveys. This session describes a bespoke approach to capture the voice of the child in the monitoring and evaluation of an out of home care program aimed at keeping sibling groups together and where sibling groups are separated, ensuring they have meaningful contact.

The approach was developed by the staff of partner agencies delivering the program. The approach leveraged knowledge of the children and took a trauma informed approach to develop ways of gathering data and information to ensure the child's safety. A mix of survey and play techniques were developed for the children, as well as processes to capture data from foster carers, family, program staff and clinicians to allow triangulation of evidence measuring the children's experiences and progress. This collaborative approach to evaluative thinking supported agencies to deliver the program. The strategies have been embedded in program protocols, improving the inclusion of the voice of the child in out of home care practices. The approach also enabled the data to be gathered as part of quality assurance monitoring, and collectively evaluated. Early results of the strategies will be presented along with reflections from the staff of the collaborative evaluative process in the program.