Empowering Evaluators in Low-Resource Settings through Community-Based Rehabilitation: Case Study in Community-Academic Partnerships in Participatory Evaluation

Abstract Information: An international, interdisciplinary community-based rehabilitation (CBR) project serves as a case study for effective community-academic partnerships in resource-limited settings. The primary objectives of CBR programs are to allow people with disabilities and their families to inform and guide programs designed to assist them; increase access to rehabilitative services; and assure equalization of opportunities for people with disabilities (e.g., attending school, job training). Despite the growth in CBR programs globally, there remains limited data on evaluation of effective programs. The community-academic partnership between St. Catherine University researchers and staff at Kafika House of Tanzania offers insights into strengthening CBR programs through evaluation capacity building (ECB). CBR as a community development strategy aimed at increasing access to rehabilitation services and enhancing the quality of life through local capacity and resource mobilization. Best practice for monitoring and evaluation of CBR programs require the continuous and accurate measurement of outcomes conducted by CBR personnel with training and competency in assessment skills related to analyzing and sharing monitoring and evaluation information Three tools (child survey, caregiver survey, and medical outcomes evaluation) were collaboratively developed for program and impact evaluations and two tools were developed for evaluation of staff compliance (compliance audit) and evaluative thinking (technical skills assessment) inside a larger organization evaluation framework including an asset map, logic model, and clinical services handbook. Community-academic partnership offers important benefits for improved CBR outcomes, including the development and implementation of knowledge and expertise promoting high quality culturally relevant research, ECB, and rehabilitative success. From an academic perspective, key challenges of collecting valid data for assessment, decreased organizational evaluative thinking for programmatic evaluation, and sustainability of partnership via funding mechanisms. From the community partner perspective, challenges are present in the implementation and administration of the evaluation tools. Key challenges for implementation include team buy-in, electronic medical record system tool integration, technical and evaluative capacity, and resource prioritization (time consuming, staff availability). Additional voiced challenges in the administration of the evaluation tools are challenges with complexities of the tool and utilizing the tool with participants that are children. Challenges in evaluation implementation elucidate opportunities for increased evaluation capacity building of young, diverse, and underrepresented community-based evaluators, integrated evaluative thinking into non-governmental organization (NGO) frameworks, and defined best practices for navigating and empowering sustainable community-academic partnerships in evaluation.