16 Feb Tool kit: Community-Based, Participatory, and Developmental Evaluation Approaches
Community-Based, Participatory, and Developmental Evaluation Approaches: An Introductory Toolkit
This document represents philosophies, methods and tools used and adapted by the “Our Food Project” of the Ecology Action Centre. This toolkit is designed to provide an introduction to evaluation approaches, with examples of many tools that we have found useful in our work.
This toolkit is divided into two main areas: an introduction to evaluation and research approaches and an introduction to practical tools and methods.
Section 2 delves into theory, giving a primer on developmental evaluation in comparison to formative and summative evaluation. This section also introduces basic research techniques that support evaluation practices, such as quantitative and qualitative research and ethics.
Section 3 demonstrates a series of external and internal evaluation practices arranged in the following categories: evaluation need, the purpose of the tool, when to use it, workshop template, what’s next, and resources.
Our Food Project: Reconnecting Food and Community
The goal of the Our Food Project is to strengthen communities’ relationship to food by helping to build what we call ‘positive food environments’. Positive food environments are the physical and social spaces that help to normalize healthy eating by making it easier to grow, sell, and eat good food. We work at the individual, community and systemic level to increase the availability of nutritious food as well as our access to it. In doing so, we actively involve people in the development of more localized food systems.