Pre-Conference Workshop
Balancing reporting requirements and meaningful data collection. How to make data work for you and your funders
Abstract:
Families and children services are operating in a landscape that increasingly values monitoring and evaluation data. Many services are now required to use a variety of assessment tools, reporting systems and frameworks that drive data collection. But how do these various frameworks and systems interact, how are they operationalised, and what does this mean for practitioners who are trying to collect and interpret data about their programs and clients?
This workshop will help service providers to:
- Use program logic models/theory of change to choose measurable outcomes that can provide important program insights and meet other reporting requirements
- identify suitable data collection tools and methods
- operationalise the Families and Children (FaC) Activity Outcomes Framework.
The session will also consider how key reporting frameworks developed by the Department of Social Services interact with each other and can be used to guide meaningful data collection activities. For example, the FaC Activity Outcomes Framework and the DSS Data Exchange and SCORE reporting guidelines.
The presenters will also explore common sticking points and challenges for collecting and reporting data and discuss ways of overcoming them.
The session will be interactive and will involve practical exercises and discussion. It will be particularly useful for FaC Activity service providers who are interested in building on what they already do and for those collecting data about their programs without a clear purpose or framework for using that data.
Pre-requisites
You must have an up-to-date program logic model/theory of change to attend this workshop. Having some familiarity with DSS reporting frameworks is also desirable.
Please note this workshop will be two repeated half day workshops, you can choose either the morning (10am – 1pm) or afternoon session (2pm – 5:30pm).
Biography:
This workshop will be delivered by members of the Evidence and Evaluation Support team at the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS). The Evidence and Evaluation Support team works with the Families and Children Activity sector to build their capacity to use evidence and evaluate their programs.
Kathryn Goldsworthy, Senior Research Officer, Australian Institute of Family Studies
Kathryn Goldsworthy works in the AIFS Evidence and Evaluation Support team, specialising in strengthening evaluation capability across child and family support services. Kathryn is knowledgeable and skilled in designing and preparing program evaluations, developing program theory and logic models, collecting and analyzing qualitative data, communicating evaluation results, research synthesis, knowledge translation and group facilitation and training. She has worked in government and not-for-profit organisations for 15 years in roles related to employment, health and community services.
Sharnee Moore, Senior Research Fellow, Australian Institute of Family Studies
Sharnee Moore is a researcher and evaluator who has worked on many AIFS projects concerning a range of issues. Her major projects have included a scoping study for a National Survey of Children and Young People in Out-of-home Care, the Evaluation of the 2012 Family Violence Amendments to the Family Law Act, and research examining the Role of Independent Children’s Lawyers in the family law system. Since 2015, Sharnee has managed the Evidence and Evaluation Support team. Prior to joining AIFS, Sharnee worked on policy and program management in relation to separated families and child support.