First Quarter 2006
Caribbean workshops focus on Fundamentals for the Evaluation of Prevention Programs
By Emily Holman*
Emily Holman
Program Specialist
A set of workshops was held in the Caribbean to improve the evaluation skills of prevention project managers in the national drug councils and their partners. This endeavor grew out of recommendations made during the seventh meeting of the Expert Group on Demand Reduction (Ottawa, September 2005) and rising MEM recommendations in the area of evaluation. Equally, it is a recognition that countries cannot properly pilot and implement research-based, broad-coverage youth prevention programs called for in the CICAD Hemispheric Guidelines on School Prevention (2004) without a clear understanding of monitoring and evaluation, and the integrated role it must play in prevention planning and execution. The CICAD Secretariat is in the process of adapting workshop materials into Spanish for future training in Latin America.
The workshops were jointly planned by Canada's Drug Strategy in Health Canada, the CICAD Secretariat, and Caribbean professionals. Each country was invited to send two participants from the drug council or its partners: (1) the central prevention program planner or manager, and (2) the research officer in the drug council who customarily supported data collection and analysis. Sessions covered developing a project plan, using the logical framework model, identifying evaluation questions and indicators, the relative strengths of different evaluation designs, data collection methods, analyzing and reporting reports, and threats to validity and other evaluation challenges.
Bryan Andrews (St. Vincent and Grenadines) maps out project logic
In Grenada, the three-day training (Jan. 31 - Feb. 2, 2006), hosted by the Drug Control Secretariat of the Ministry of Education was delivered by two Canadian experts to 16 participants from seven countries (Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Suriname).
In Bahamas (March 07-10, 2006), a total of 17 persons attended, representing Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Haiti, Jamaica, and the territories of Cayman Islands, Bermuda and Turks, and Caicos. To build a sense of Caribbean and CICAD leadership in the area of evaluation training, the workshop was facilitated by individuals from Health Canada, Bahamian and Bermudan drug researchers, the Grenada Drug Control Secretariat and CICAD's Inter-American Observatory on Drugs, and was hosted by the Bahamas National Drug Council of the Ministry of Health.
Shirley Wilkes (St Kitts and Nevis), Jacinta Bannis (Dominica) and Marie Bunwaree (Suriname) focus on their lesson.
The training was modeled on an evaluation course developed by the National Crime Prevention Centre of Canada for community-based program planners, which has shown positive results in extensive Canadian evaluations. Health Canada adapted the course handbook for this project, incorporating Caribbean case studies developed by participating member states. Since the course follows a training-of-trainers model, participating countries are expected to replicate the 3-day training to domestic prevention colleagues during 2006. Indeed, reflecting this model, two Grenadian trainees successfully served as facilitators in the second workshop. Almost all participants committed to undertake project evaluations in their home country based on knowledge developed during the training.
Canada's Mary Sehl and Colleen Ryan award a workshop certificate to Clayton Ollivierre (St. Vincent).
* Emily Holman was a program specialist for CICAD's Demand Reduction Unit.
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