Building Professional Relationships that Facilitate Growth in Pursuit of Social Justice and Liberation in Evaluation

Abstract Information: American Evaluation Association's (AEA) annual meeting theme, Amplifying and empowering voices in evaluation, calls us to bring together new evaluators and established professionals to collaborate and create a stronger future together. In this panel, pairs of mentors and scholars will share their learning experiences, including mentoring those new to the field as well as improving the understanding of seasoned evaluators how to do this in a way that reflects the meeting theme. Mentors are critical throughout professional life course of evaluation. Sparse literature exists on the importance of mentoring across the life course in evaluation. Lifespan approaches to mentoring and professional relationships can provide guidance for how to engage and enhance effectiveness. This panel will present on the relevance of diversity and new perspectives in and across the disciplines of education, public health, and social work. Presenters will share how their mentoring relationships started, how they are going, and what the plans are for the future. The streams of professional development and leadership, along with program development and design, will be illustrated in the mentoring relationship dynamics. Special attention will be given to thinking about goal setting, meaningful growth, sustainability and evolution. Each panelist will also detail their own critical reflective practice, and how they think about their paradigm of thinking. Questions such as: How do we make growth sustainable?; and How do we bring the voices of diverse cultures and communities into practice? will be addressed. Presenters will also share now how their mentor-scholar relationships continue to mature to become colleagues, friends and contributors to evaluation from a social justice and liberation perspectives. While the guiding AEA principles reflect guidance for the professional and ethical engagement of evaluators with communities, it is also important as guidance for engagement in a mentoring relationship where the principles of respect for people and integrity are reflected in practice. The presenters bring perspectives from both domestic and international settings and the shared learning of experience as evaluators who adopt a culturally responsive approach to evaluation, appreciating the importance of empowerment as part of engagement and processes in evaluation. Learning Objectives By the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:  Identify methods of empowerment in mentoring relationships among evaluators.  Describe a lifespan approach to mentoring and professional relationships for evaluators.  Describe multiple ways that mentoring relationships facilitate growth in pursuit of social justice and liberation in evaluation.