We are very excited to announce our confirmed keynote speakers for the conference:

Kim van der Woerd, Reciprocal Consulting

Kylie Hutchinson, independent evaluation consultant and trainer with Community Solutions Planning & Evaluation.

Paul Lacerte, Moosehide Campaign

KEYNOTE SPEAKER BIOS

Kim van der Woerd

Kim van der Woerd is a member of the ‘Namgis First Nation from Alert Bay, BC. Kim is the sole proprietor of Reciprocal Consulting, and has 20 years of experience conducting local, provincial and national program evaluations managing over 135 projects.Kim completed her PhD in Psychology at Simon Fraser University. Her dissertation was the recipient of the Michael Scriven Dissertation Award for Outstanding Contribution to Evaluation Theory, Methodology or Practice, 2007.Kim also received the Canadian Evaluation Society Contributions to Evaluation in Canada 2014 Award for her mentorship of Indigenous students. Kim has also been active in her community serving on many boards and is currently serving on the board of the YWCA Canada

Kylie Hutchinson

Kylie Hutchinson has spent the past twenty years working as an independent evaluation consultant and trainer with Community Solutions Planning & Evaluation.

She is well-known for her popular evaluation workshops and webinars on data parties, reporting, and utilization. Her passion is taking evaluation theory and turning it into practical and engaging resources that evaluators everywhere can use immediately in the field.

Kylie is the author of Survive and Thrive: Three Steps to Securing Your Program’s Sustainability. She is currently writing a second book on effective evaluation reporting and editing another on learning from evaluation mistakes.

Paul Lacerte

Paul-Lacerte1 Paul Lacerte is a member of the Nadleh Whut’en First Nation in northern BC. He served as the Executive Director for the BC Assn of Aboriginal Friendship Centres for the past 20 years.

In 2011 Paul and his daughter Raven co-founded the Moosehide Campaign, a grass roots movement of Indigenous and non-Indigenous men working to end violence against women and children.

In his spare time, he is a professional clown and his home is known as the House of Happiness. He was awarded the Order of British Columbia in 2014.

PLENARY PANEL: Pushing Forward: With or Without Evaluation

Panellists

Ryan Conway, Program Director, Innoweave, The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation
Nick Falvo, PhD, Director, Research and Data, Calgary Homeless Foundation
Mark Valentine, ReframeIt Consulting (San Francisco) and Ecotrust
Penny Hawkins, former Head of Evaluation at the UK Department for International Development (DFID), London, will act as Discussant/Moderator

Abstract

The conference theme “Facing Forward: Innovation, Action, and Reflection” presumes evaluation has a role in addressing contemporary challenges. This session will make us ask ourselves a question we might not rather face: What if it doesn’t? What if evaluation is a nuisance or hindrance, or worse yet, irrelevant to pushing change forward? Or worse still, an accomplice to outdated, ill-thought or socially retrogressive policies and programs? In this panel, three leading agents of social and environmental change, working outside the parameters of formal evaluation, share their experiences with evaluation and their views on its role in Pushing Forward.

THEMATIC STRAND

Special presentations in the Thematic Strand will delve deeper into the conference theme areas: Innovation, Action and Reflection.

INNOVATION: Evaluators’ roles and responsibilities as social change agents in response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada Calls to Action

Keiko Kuji-Shikatani, Larry Bremner, J. Bradley Cousins, Linda Lee

Evaluation practice as change agents for the evaluand —the social innovation that will take us to where we want to get to —will be the focus of this panel discussion that examines how we must reflect on taking action both as individual evaluators and as an evaluation community to do whatever we can to change the narrative that perpetuates the injustice that continues on. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada published 94 Calls to Action urging all levels of governments and the collective efforts of all peoples to revitalize the relationship between Indigenous peoples and society to achieve reconciliation to make for a better, stronger society. What is our responsibility as evaluators? Evaluators working in various contexts will share how they are contributing to social change that require a collective and concerted effort to repair harm done to people over a prolonged time, move forward to reconciliation and a better society.

ACTION: Voices UP!

Christopher Cook, Andrew Leyland, Suzie O’Shea, Janina Mobach, Voices UP! Collective

Come see evaluation findings like you’ve never seen them before as we use theatre to present a day in the life of the Learning Lab, a program at the UBC Learning Exchange. The Learning Lab offers diverse educational opportunities tailored to community members’ interests and passions in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Collectively written and performed by UBC Learning Exchange staff, students, and patrons as part of an evaluation of the Learning Lab program, Voices UP! takes program evaluation off the page and on to the stage. As an innovative theatre-based evaluation project, Voices UP! allows for a more personal, narrative approach to presenting evaluation findings to community and funding bodies. Developed over several months of rehearsals and performances, the creation process has encouraged continual reflection and evaluation of how well our programing works for our participants. The performance will be followed by a discussion with the Voices UP! creators. Come enjoy a show, and be introduced to a collaborative, engaging means of arts-based evaluation.

REFLECTION: The Future of Professionalization: Reflection [plus] Innovation = Effective Action

John Gargani, John LaVelle, Stewart Donaldson, Kate Ruff, Benoît Gauthier

In this panel, experts advance their visions for strengthening the evaluation profession globally. We start from a common premise: evaluation matters because it improves the lives of people, and professionalization helps evaluation matter more. This reframes the discussion—rather than treating professionalization as an end in itself, we see it as a means to create a better world. We consider the roles that training, standards, mentoring, norms, designations and other strategies play in strengthening the practice, use, commissioning and impact of evaluation. The panel will describe the results of a recent evaluation of Canada’s Credentialed Evaluator designation, the development of AEA’s evaluator competencies, the experience of Europe’s Voluntary Evaluator Peer Review System, the emergence of accounting standards for reporting the social impact of private companies, and graduate evaluation training programs around the world. Based on their research and experience, panelists provide a vision for the future of professionalization and how we may judge its success.