Head, Heart, and Hands: Evaluating Community-Centered COVID-19 Response Efforts in a State Agency

Abstract Information: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Minnesota Department of Health created the Cultural, Faith, and Disability Communities (CFD) Branch to help with the public health response. The CFD Branch evaluation had two purposes: to determine if the branch was making a difference in the health of our communities, and to aid in decision-making that would steer the response in the right direction. But getting evaluation off the ground had its challenges. Staff were deeply embedded in the response, many staff were new to evaluation, resources were scarce since testing and vaccination were a priority, and  the branch's partners faced similar challenges. With evaluation in a supporting role, the branch had to be creative and practical. The evaluation team developed a strength-based evaluation framework that harnessed the gifts of the head, heart, and mind. This meant engaging branch members and partners throughout the evaluation, from identifying the evaluation questions and focus areas to tool design, data collection, analysis, and interpretation, and reporting. It meant providing training to those who had the eagerness to learn how to conduct surveys, interviews, and focus groups; mining staff knowledge of existing data and incorporating them into the evaluation; welcoming the spirit of volunteerism when tasks awaited; and using one’s talent for words to disseminate findings through poetic inquiry.