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Alison Faure-Brac (CIRCA - Cultural and Indigenous Research Centre Australia)

Services are increasingly required to ensure programs and practices are informed by evidence, and funding is increasingly tied to demonstration of outcomes. For many organisations, a shift to outcomes-based reporting requires a major change in thinking, and the development of systems to support data collection.  Further, teams are not recruited for their evaluation skills, nor is it their core role.  This paper discusses how the Tackling Indigenous Smoking programme (TIS) has sought to guide and support 37 organisations (grant recipients) funded to undertake multi-level regional approaches to tobacco control, to deliver evidence-based activities, to measure local activity outcomes, and contribute to national tobacco reduction outcomes.

Examples will be provided of the evaluation system that supports the TIS programme, including the establishment of a National Best Practice Unit (NBPU) to support grant recipients by building the technical capacity and culture of organisations to measure, interpret and present program outcomes at a local level; the development of a web-based portal that hosts information on planning smoking cessation activities and assessing 'what works'; and a social media platform to encourage information sharing and collaboration among grant recipients.

Alongside local evaluation activities, a national evaluator is building evaluation capital by assessing national TIS programme impact. Grant recipients are using five nationally consistent performance indicators as the basis for their activities and performance reporting.  The indicators have the dual purpose of allowing organisations to report outcomes for locally relevant activities, and contributing to a national picture of TIS programme impact.   

The authors will discuss the role and responsibility of TIS grant recipients, the NBPU and the national evaluators, and the barriers and enablers for this evaluation system to enhance reflective practice and to contribute to the evidence around smoking reduction Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.