Recently, we asked social scientist and human rights advocate Dr Jill Chrisp if she would mind sharing the feedback she gave to us, after watching one of our webinars this year: Outcomes Harvesting Evaluation – the missing piece of the puzzle?
Here is Jill’s feedback:
I have attended a number of Community Research webinars which have been really good. However I was disappointed in this one. It is an important topic, but there was an assumption that it is new to Aotearoa. Apart from comments from Comet about what they would like to do, there were no examples given of OM and OH in Aotearoa. A large number of participants attended and so interest was high. Perhaps revisit the topic – ground it more in our mahi and bring forward tangata whenua voices.
We then connected with Jill and said we’d like to genuinely learn from her feedback. Here is that kōrero between Jill and Community Research’s Janie Walker to make sure our organisation is learning from the people we seek to serve.
Thank you for your wonderful feedback – we heard you and we agree. Would you like to say anything else?
I was interested in what was happening in Aotearoa around Outcomes Harvesting and Mapping. Others were asking the same thing in the Chat during the webinar. COMET do some great work in this space and it was good to hear from them. There are others also as indicated in the chat. I think someone mentioned Rangahau. I was keen to know about those case studies and what they were planning to do with their work. I’m on the Board of Trust Tairāwhiti, for example and we have developed our own region-centric wellbeing framework – He Rangitapu He Tohu Ora. Our team here is doing some great work on supporting community groups and businesses understand how to view, describe and achieve impact.
I’d like to know more about social impact reporting or evaluation, and especially the shift between activity and impact. It’s a shift we need to support communities to do. For me, it’s about supporting communities, including iwi and hapū, to develop the tools they need to work out what impact they want to make, figure out how to make that impact and what it looks like when they are successful. I think it’s about facilitating processes rather than imposing our own.
Kia ora for your feedback. Just a couple of other questions if you don’t mind – we really value your interest and support of Community Research. Next year we will be co-creating a Knowledge Collision Symposium around how to honour Te Tiriti as we braid diverse knowledges. We’d like to focus on supporting regional conversations to set the national agenda.
The idea of having some kind of key focus, then building material around that, is good – along the lines of diversity, inclusion, and the ability to support communities through multiple ways of working. I like it.
And what would your ideal Community Research webinar be?
Something on self-determination, human rights and Te Tiriti – and how groups are handling their own sovereignty during COVID. There are so many little pockets who have done this – I’d like to see that pulled together: What’s worked and why has it worked, what hasn’t worked, and what do we need to influence going forward? How do we really learn from our response to COVID? With a focus on the strengths of community. Also, how has Te Tiriti and human rights informed our COVID response (or not), or how should it. What are the examples? What does it mean to be a Tiriti partner in this context?
Awesome. Let’s do it!
Ngā mihi nui to Jill for sharing her whakaaro (thoughts) with Community Research.