Using Evaluation Throughout the Partnership Process

There are four main ways in which your partnership can use the evaluations it undertakes:

• Delivering the partnership plan - Evaluation identifies what works best in which circumstances.
• Monitoring the progress of the work - Evaluations can help to highlight what adjustments need to made to work being undertaken and any unintended consequences.
• Conducting the strategic assessment - The key findings of the evaluation, including the success factors, barriers and learning points, can inform the next year’s strategic assessment.
• Contributing to Appropriate Skills and Knowledge - It is not only your own partnership that can benefit from the evaluations you undertake, other partnerships have an interest in your work (as you will have in theirs). It is vital that partnerships try to share the results of the evaluations as widely as possible. This may be through submission to the Effective Practice database (see the Additional Resources in this section), writing for journals or working through peer groups.