229 - Introducing Clinicians to Program Evaluation through Project Implementation

Abstract Information: Mental health has become a major challenge to the federal government and individual states, resulting in significant allocation of funding to address it. Although the fight against mental health involves professionals from disciplines such as psychology and nursing, the need to ensure value for money, accountability, etc., has called for evaluators to evaluate mental health projects. However, comparing evaluation to other disciplines such as psychology, evaluation is relatively new and its growth, diversity, and sustainability require the perspectives of various stakeholders, including new generation evaluators. The interdisciplinary nature of evaluation has allowed evaluators to work in mental health, allowing them to propagate the tenets of evaluation to clinicians who are heavily involved in mental health but not evaluation inclined.