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Participants in my training courses often say something like “We are doing some evaluation but I’m not sure if we are doing it well enough”.

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This reflects the uncertainty many people feel about what evaluation is, how to do it, and what it can achieve. I felt exactly the same anxiety when I undertook my first project evaluation in 1991 and decided that, once I had gained sufficient experience, I was going to work in a way that de-mystified evaluation and helped others understand the processes involved.

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Since then I have supported and carried out numerous evaluations using mainly qualitative and participatory approaches but also including some quantitative work.

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My approach is always to explore what a client needs in terms of evaluation and to offer the most appropriate and cost-effective intervention. This may be an external evaluation, a supported self-evaluation, producing a self-evaluation toolkit, or carrying out a short evaluation consultancy.

Whatever the intervention I aim to “keep it simple”, and design an approach to evaluation that works for the project concerned.

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Examples of evaluation work which represent the range of supportive interventions I offer are:

• Delivered two micro-consultancies in evaluation for the Centre for Alternative Technology, Wales, involving less than half a day’s work each to review and suggest improvements to current evaluation practice.

• The development of an evaluation toolkit for Faith in Families Family Centres in the Swansea area to enable staff to carry out self-evaluations of their work.

• Conducted a three year evaluation of Alcohol Concern Cymru’s Communities Together project in Fishguard (with Participation Cymru).

• Currently conducting a participatory evaluation of Cartrefi Cymru using the Most Significant Change approach and involving members and staff of the co-operative in generating and valuing stories of success.

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