Chapter 1: Introduction

CASE PROFILE 1: A community health center in India that provides community and health care services and outreach to the urban and rural poor seeks to adopt a participatory approach to evaluate its progress over a 4-year period. Interest in the approach was based on its focus on reaching the poorest sectors of the community, involving health workers and other community stakeholders in designing their own evaluation, and developing relevant and realistic program recommendations. Through an external funding opportunity, the hospital hired a facilitator in participatory evaluation to work with community health and development workers, many of whom could neither read nor write, to help them accomplish their goals. The evaluation began with a 6-day workshop designed to prepare and train participants for the evaluation, during which they discussed the objectives of the program and the evaluation, developed indicators and progress measures, identified data collection methods, and developed evaluation tools and interview protocols. Data were collected through a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods, including the analysis of records and documentation, surveys, meetings and focus groups, observation and key informant interviews. The participatory evaluation led to community learning, capacity building and enhanced community health programming and outreach services (Feuerstein, 1998, study no. 33²).