Kylie Brosnan (Ipsos), Sharon Barnes (Ipsos), Michael Barnes (Ipsos)

The evaluation of the Community Development Programme (CDP) will be made up of a number of components, including community case studies in eight CDP regions with eight communities participating in the research.  This case study research was conducted by over 40 local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community researchers. A backbone organisation or committee was formed in each community to support and guide the research. Local community researchers were employed to undertake the survey development and data collection and finalise the community reports.  Winangali/Ipsos Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander researchers supported, mentored and trained local community researchers to undertake the research.

As part of reflective practice the local researchers evaluated what worked and what didn't when working on the evaluation. The evaluation of the evaluation included a short survey by local community researchers, discussion with the backbone committee and video diaries during fieldwork.The contexts for each community and each local community researcher varied significantly. Local community researchers used different methods, some were experienced researchers and for others it was their first time. The composition of the backbone organisations and how they were involved in the project also varied.

This paper will demonstrate the self-determination, philosophy, methods and techniques employed by the local community researchers to deliver a case study evaluation.  The findings of the evaluation of the evaluation will be informative for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander evaluators seeking to understand how to improve their evaluation practice and for non-Indigenous evaluators seeking to understand how to adopt a strengths based approach to evaluation in remote communities.