Practice Note Research Articles

The Expropriation of Sanctioned Assets: Does Ukrainian Jurisprudence Respond to Human Rights Concerns?

Abstract This policy and practice note raises human rights concerns about the Law of Ukraine ‘On Sanctions’ imposed during time of war. Despite its legitimate aim to stop the war aggression, the expropriation of sanctioned assets into state income, newly introduced in 2022, significantly risks human rights violations. The current jurisprudence in Ukraine on the expropriation of assets of sanctioned individuals and entities into state income raises the following four key human rights concerns: (1) duplication of the offence and punishment from national criminal law; (2) retroactive effect of the introduced sanction; (3) inadequate procedural safeguards for sanctioned persons; and (4) unlimited scope of persons and their assets that can be expropriated. This note argues that these significant drawbacks cannot be legitimized even in time of war.

Walking the tightrope: experiences of teaching gender and development practice

ABSTRACT This paper accounts for the experiences of the authors who teach feminist approaches to gender and development practice at a university in India. As a space for discourse and debate on development, the university is consistently shaped by the embodied experiences of students who enter the university from diverse subject positions through affirmative action policies. This practice note shares how the teachers engage with teaching a course titled “Women, Development Practice and Politics”. The paper highlights the inadequacies in gender and development (GAD) literature that views gender as a binary and women as a homogenous group, remains silent on the intersectional axis of gender inequalities, and uncritical of the development paradigm. The paper shares how the teachers overcome these deficiencies in the literature by creating a fluid connection with the “field”, thereby highlighting the centrality of place-based (time–space-embodied) knowledges and reclaiming the legacy of critique, an attribute which is at the core of the GAD approach.

Integrating natural and cultural approaches in heritage conservation: Introduction to a Practice Note

During the first years of Covid, 2020–2023, a group of seven colleagues across three continents—working outside of institutional contexts—prepared a Practice Note on naturecultures. The Practice Note draws together the long-time work, experience, and thinking of the authors, all of whom work in the field of heritage conservation. It gives focus to the improved integration of nature and culture, and cultural heritage and natural heritage, in the work of caring for and safeguarding important places. By promoting awareness of diversity and mutual respect for multiple views and understandings, the Practice Note is concerned with working together, fostering dialogue, and creating long-lasting and equitable approaches to conservation. In this introduction, we outline the purpose, origins, and the making of the Practice Note.

Intersectionality and participation as threshold concepts

ABSTRACT In education theories, threshold concepts are key concepts within a discipline, and students must learn and understand them. Once they have comprehended those threshold concepts, it is argued that students' critical analysis and comprehension will be transformed and enhanced. Intersectionality and participation are among the key threshold concepts in Gender and Development (GAD) theories and practices. However, within the classroom settings, students can find it challenging to understand the two concepts, and how to apply them in the development context from an equitable and inclusive approach. This practice note shares my experience of designing assessments and activities using the threshold concept approach, where students learn about intersectionality and participation through a high-stake roleplay over three weeks, during which I observe the students' interactions with each other, as well as how they apply intersectionality and participation theories in their strategies and negotiations. Based on students' learning experiences over three years, I argue that the use of roleplay is highly effective and creates a safe space for students to navigate troublesome knowledge and embrace GAD threshold concepts through trial and error.

Employing a Youth Internship Model to Identify Goals to Reduce Barriers to Active Living.

Active lifestyles are vital for promoting health. In this practice note, we describe the implementation of an active living intervention designed to engage youth in identifying barriers to being physically active and developing recommendations to address these barriers. Youth interns were compensated for their time. Through this project, the community obtained street striping for the first time, secured a community center when the police substation building was turned over to the community, and had sidewalk funding prioritized for one of their busiest streets. Lessons learned while developing and implementing this youth internship program focused on making the internship program work well given youth schedules and focusing on supporting the voice of youth to advocate for changes to the built environment in an intentionally excluded community.

Strengthening Youth Emotional and Behavioral Well-Being Through Community-Academic Partnership: The EMPOWER Project.

The onset of mental health issues frequently starts during adolescence, where one third of adolescents who are 14 years and younger receive a mental health diagnosis. The state of youth mental health is a major public health concern. The EMPOWER project was developed during the COVID-19 pandemic to address youth mental health. The EMPOWER project is a partnership between two after-school programs and an academic mental health hospital in Toronto, Canada, that aims to bolster youth mental well-being. In this Practice Note, we share our community-based participatory research process of how we built the EMPOWER partnership and highlight our lessons learned so far. Through EMPOWER, we aim to codesign, deliver, and evaluate a scalable, evidence-based, and community-informed youth mental wellness curriculum that will be implemented in after-school programs.

Building Multiple Pathways to Healing, Safety, and Accountability to Address Intimate Partner Violence

Many responses to intimate partner violence (IPV), especially work to engage those who have caused harm through IPV, have remained relatively unchanged over the past few decades despite the widespread, long-lasting, and devastating impact IPV continues to have on communities. Engaging people who cause harm is a crucial part of supporting survivors, fostering healthy relationships and communities, and ending violence. In response to a need to develop more effective programming, New York City implemented a comprehensive citywide approach to people who cause harm, developing multiple programming options for people who cause harm both within and outside of the criminal legal system. This practice note outlines these programs and proposes several practice implications for the field.

E-Eval: Learnings from a Community-Based Evaluation Capacity Building Initiative

Evaluation capacity building (ECB) initiatives are important for supporting social-serving organizations in using evaluation to demonstrate and improve the effectiveness of their programs. In this practice note, the authors present their experience developing and implementing E-Eval, a responsive community-based course for building evaluation capacity in Alberta’s mentoring sector. In order to support others in taking a similar approach to building evaluation capacity in the social-serving sector, they describe how the concept of E-Eval emerged, outline its design and implementation processes, and discuss their learnings and their relevance for other professionals implementing or researching community-based ECB.

Using Dedoose to “Quantitize” Qualitative Data in Mixed Method Analysis: A Case Analysis

This practice note provides a review of Dedoose®, a software analysis platform capable of mixed methods analysis, based on a case application. The software has been used infrequently by the evaluation community but has significant potential, particularly for those interested in “quantizing” qualitative data. The evaluation of the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists’ Fellowship Program is briefly described, followed by a description and critique of our application of Dedoose. The authors conclude by encouraging evaluation practitioners to seriously consider adding this mixed-methods data analysis platform to their chest of tools.

Expert Panels in Evaluation: An Update From the Field Using the DATA Model

In this practice note, the authors reflect on the use and utility of expert panels in evaluation. They apply the describe, analyze, theorize, act model using interviews with evaluators, insights from peer-reviewed literature and their own professional observations. Connections are made to larger evaluation discourses regarding reflection, expert opinion, expertise, epistemic authority, and lived experience. It was found that expert panels are generally underutilized in evaluation due to a lack of awareness among evaluators as well as the perceived complexity associated with this method. However, the literature and interviews were clear that, when managed properly, expert panels can add tremendous value to an evaluation. There is therefore merit for more seriously considering panels in future evaluations. This note provides recommendations for evaluators and the evaluation community at large.

Developing an Evaluation Training Program for Community-Based Organizations: A Participatory Curriculum Development Approach

Community-based organizations increasingly recognize the value of evaluative insights in informing decision-making and improving their services. However, these organizations often lack the capacity to conduct and use evaluations, and traditional evaluation capacity building (ECB) activities are not always adapted to their particular contexts. This practice note introduces an innovative evaluation training program for small grassroots community-based organizations. Employing a participatory curriculum development approach, the training program was tailored to meet the specific needs and realities of the community sector. The authors first outline the collaborative process used to involve community and academic stakeholders in the program’s development. They then present the resulting training plan, consisting of seven self-directed online learning modules with chosen activities to foster learning and knowledge transfer into practice. The potential implications for designing, researching, and evaluating similar initiatives are explored and discussed.

Meeting the Challenge: How the City of Kingston Is Working to Propel Evaluation Growth

This practice note shares key learnings from the inaugural Evaluation Capacity Case Challenge (EC3) held by the Max Bell School of Public Policy in April 2023. The purpose is to give readers an opportunity to consider how to shape evaluation capacity in general and within a municipal context. Evaluation capacity building (ECB) is a multifaceted concept to support shared learning about and understanding of evaluation. Strands of learning about ECB emerged from EC3 that can be applied within organizations. These centre on three important actions: (1) establishing a community of practice led by champions, (2) scaling and sequencing evaluation capacity, and (3) developing data literacy as a technical skill. The ECB strategies developed in EC3 offered new ways for the City of Kingston to consider and reconsider how it conducts, shares, learns from, and uses evaluation. Here, the authors describe evaluation within the City of Kingston, the city’s goals in entering EC3, key learnings from the challenge, and the city’s ensuing efforts to propel the growth of evaluation.

Evaluation Capacity Building: Experiential Learning Through Community–University Collaboratives

There is a growing need for evaluation capacity building (ECB) in community organizations; however, learning opportunities for both organizations and post-secondary students are limited, particularly opportunities to apply evaluation concepts in practice. This practice note describes four initiatives and highlights the ways in which experiential learning can be leveraged through community-university collaborations to provide responsive, hands-on ECB for both students and community organizations. The authors discuss the unique contributions of these initiatives and considerations for designing and implementing similar initiatives.

Developing Evaluation Capacity Building Competencies: Participant Reflections From the Evaluation Capacity Case Challenge

In 2023, McGill University’s Max Bell School of Public Policy hosted the inaugural Evaluation Capacity Case Challenge (EC3) competition with a cohort of 19 selected graduate students and early-career professionals studying or working in Canada or the United States. It was a multifaceted learning opportunity for participants to expand evaluation capacity building (ECB) competencies and served as a bridge between formal education and real-world practice. This practice note offers reflections from five students representing all teams and one coach on how EC3 supported competency development as outlined by the Canadian Evaluation Society and the American Evaluation Association. Focused on domains related to professional reflection, technical and methodological skills, situational context, as well as management and interpersonal skills, this article explores the role of EC3 in honing skills specific to ECB, preparing evaluators to excel in their roles and champion ECB in diverse and evolving contexts.

Learning From Evaluation Data: Discoveries From the Inaugural Evaluation Capacity Case Challenge

Evaluation competitions, a process that has existed for more than three decades, are a mechanism to promote program evaluation and enhance evaluation capacity. Integrating these competitions into evaluation education extends traditional teaching models beyond theory-dense learning contexts. This practice note delves into the Evaluation Case Competition Challenge (EC3), a case challenge designed to advance knowledge on evaluation capacity building (ECB). Insights from an end-of-experience survey are distilled into three discoveries: successful elements of the multifaceted competition structure and exploring the case challenge as a valuable opportunity for ECB, as well as a focus on student celebrations and suggestions. These discoveries provide insight into the learner experiences and recommendations for the future trajectory of EC3. Five guiding principles for envisioning evaluation learning competitions are offered for consideration.

Centring intersectionality and decolonisation in an online undergraduate gender and development course in Canada

ABSTRACT Despite the growing acknowledgement by development academics and educators of the need to decolonise the study and teaching of development, and to apply an intersectional gender lens to development issues, there has been little discussion and few examples of how this can be achieved in an online undergraduate gender and development (GAD) course. A scan of undergraduate GAD course syllabi from Canadian universities revealed an absence of intersectionality and decolonisation as concepts and approaches, minimal linkages between GAD theory and practice, and an uncritical focus on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In this practice note, I share several approaches to centre intersectionality, promote critical and decolonial perspectives, and bridge theory and practice in a newly created online course at the University of the Fraser Valley, BC, Canada. Drawing upon themes that emerged in online discussion posts and course evaluations, I also discuss students’ views.

Caring for trans community

This audio practice note and the collective document it describes are part of “narrative projects in support of trans lives”, and are the first to be published in this collection of work. Not to fix anything, but just to offer a millimetre of relief or breath or humour or companionship”: A collective document about caring for trans community brings together many stories of care within and with trans community. Our hope is that this document will help connect readers to a sense of community and collective action, and will invite readers, regardless of gender identity, to join us in taking actions of care within a social context that is increasingly hostile to trans lives. These stories, reflection questions, and invitations describe and welcome a wide range of care, including small, personal, and beautifully imperfect actions taken by and alongside trans community.

A case study in leveraging strategic partnerships through trust‐based philanthropy

AbstractThis practice note highlights a case study of leveraging strategic partnerships through trust‐based philanthropy, a set of practices rooted in values, relationship building, mutual learning, and equity. It describes the motivations, planning, and execution of a symposium organized by, and held for, a Foundation and four of its grantees. The symposium led to the development of sustained pathways between and among the partners, resulting in productive collaborations and shared projects. This case study is shared to illustrate the argument that it is the responsibility of funders, and certainly in their self‐interest, to eliminate competition between organizations to whom they provide financial resources and support. By facilitating trust and collaboration, funders are uniquely positioned to foster collective, higher‐impact work.

Community-Based Evaluation When Localizing Sustainable Development Goals

The purpose of this practice note is to demonstrate how a community-based approach to evaluation can be used to support the evaluations of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals in local community settings. The authors argue that using a community-based evaluation approach that is stakeholder-driven, participatory, and action-oriented is one mechanism to address this challenge. They illustrate the utility of such an evaluation approach by identifying their key learnings through a national capacity-building project.

Growing Kalo (Taro) in the Continental United States.

As an increasing number of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander adults move to the continental United States, the development and implementation of resources that promote access to cultural foods and support food sovereignty on the continent is crucial to perpetuate cultural practice and connection to the 'āina (land that feeds). Kalo (taro) is an important cultural food central to Native Hawaiian identity. Native Hawaiians connect their genealogy as far back to the cultivation of kalo and the creation of kalo itself. In this practice note, we describe the creation of a māla kalo (cultivated field for taro) in Oregon by the Ka'aha Lāhui O 'Olekona Hawaiian Civic Club. An ongoing project over the past 3 years, the creation of a māla kalo exceeded expectations. Not only did the māla allow the cultivation of kalo outside of Hawaii, the māla became a place for the community to unite toward common goals of connecting with the land, promoting mental health, and creating a sense of place in their diaspora. This project indicates that not only is the creation of māla kalo in Oregon feasible, it may also be an important opportunity for the growing number of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders adults living on the continent to improve health outcomes through connections with cultural foods and practices.