Equipped for evaluation: Planning and designing high quality health and wellbeing evaluations

Are you responsible for designing, planning or delivering interventions, services or technologies aiming to influence health and wellbeing?

Do you often hear that evaluation is important but are not sure where to start?

Evaluation is a structured way of finding out whether a project, service, product, or policy is working, and why. It helps us understand not just what is happening, but how and why it happened, for who and in what context. Evaluation can explore how something is being delivered, what difference it’s making and whether it’s a good use of resources.

By building understanding of what works (or doesn’t work), and under what conditions, evaluation can provide valuable insights and recommendations, highlight areas for improvement and guide decisions about future delivery.

In this workshop, Gemma Coupe and Dr Amanda Seims of Lancaster University’s Health and Care Evaluation Facility, will:

• Introduce evaluation, explore its benefits, and share the key things to consider when planning and designing your evaluation
• Learn about essential elements such as developing a theory of change, designing your evaluation approach, and allocating resources
• Gain practical examples, resources, and the knowledge and confidence to plan, design or commission your own evaluation.

Gemma and Amanda will also provide an overview of the evaluation support available through Lancaster University’s Health and Care Evaluation Facility.

Who should join?

This workshop will be relevant to:

• Local authority officers in public health, adult social care, children’s services, commissioning, strategy, or performance
• VCFSE organisations delivering health and care interventions
• Commissioners and contract managers responsible for funding and oversight
• Programme and service leads designing or improving services
• Anyone responsible for demonstrating impact, reporting outcomes, or evidencing social value

Location

This session will take place in-person in Meeting Room 3 in the Holiday Inn. Please note the workshop is 90 minutes in duration from 1 - 2.30pm.

Please see the Big Evidence Fortnight full programme for other sessions you might be interested in.