Tag Archive for: evaluation during coronavirus

Evaluation: To Have and To Heal

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When you hear Ancient Egypt for Modern Times, what do you think of? We thought of pyramids, and mummies and actually the whole of Egyptian Culture. We have loved evaluating this project around connecting modern people to ancient themes. This project aims to take the whole of that culture and make it relevant now. Of particular poignancy is how people have coped with tough times, and bereavement throughout the generations, which is timely given the last few years.

The Evaluator is delighted to be working the Manchester Museum team to understand the impact of their project, which includes an inter-generational project working across schools and care homes and an online project, of which more is below.

The official project description is:

To Have and to Heal is a unique new arts and wellbeing programme, supporting Covid recovery and resilience, which explores Manchester Museum’s World Class Egyptology collection and popular fascination with ancient Egypt. Sessions provide a safe space to share responses to and personal reflections of experiences of the pandemic.

Participating groups are invited to explore a chosen theme, through which discussion and reflections are shared in relation to the objects and the personal experiences they may connect with. Themes range from Magical Healing and Touch, to Loss and The Meaning of Art.

The interactive online programme includes real time engagement and Q & A with the Museum’s Curator of Egypt and Sudan, showcases high quality digital images of rarely seen objects from the collection, together with a behind the scenes virtual visit to the Museum’s storerooms.

​The online programme uses Manchester Museum’s collections as a catalyst for providing inspiration, and meaningful support to groups and organisations that have been heavily affected by the coronavirus pandemic, and is open to:

*​Third sector organisations offering vital support to people at risk of social isolation, with health conditions, or caring responsibilities.

*Schools and home-schoolers seeking inspirational new resources to support ‘catching-up’ on disrupted education

*Care homes and living independent living facilities

You can find out more about the project by clicking here. There are a number of short films which can be freely viewed to explore some of the project themes and objects from Ancient Egypt on the same link.

This project is funded by The Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund – delivered by the Museums Association.

Manchester Museum reopens soon at 10am on the 18th February and is opening with a free exhibition, Golden Mummies. You can find out more here. 

New Client; Surrey County Council

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The Evaluator is delighted to be working with a new client, Surrey County Council. We’re working on an innovative placemaking project being delivered between a partnership lead jointly by Reigate & Banstead Borough Council and Surrey County Council to put the community at the heart of placemaking.

We are following and measuring the process and creating a capacity building report, a toolkit for others wanting to do placemaking in their locality and an animated case study to put the story of this work back into the mouths of the people taking part.

 

Adapting Evaluations for Covid-19; Three Tips.

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We were talking to a client earlier and sharing a newly adapted evaluation for Covid-19 times. None of us know what is coming next or when a return to face-to-face work may be possible. For our clients who often work with really vulnerable individuals this means worry, and feelings of frustration and helplessness. Many charities and not-for-profits have adapted their work: turning to online support sessions; texts; video calls; providing webinars and online discussion groups; YouTube channels; and Digital Festivals. The range of adaptive work is huge and we are adapting away too.

Online work is still making an impact – and work that makes an impact can be measured. That is where we can help: we can figure out how to measure that impact.

Even if you are not working with an evaluation consultancy, here are three simple tips you can use.

1. Use polls

Lots of our clients, and ourselves included, are now using Zoom, which has the option to create polls. You can’t do this ‘live’ during a Zoom call, it must be done in advance. There are lots of simple tutorials online about how to create one. We would recommend you try and think of just one question you can use throughout all your work, and embed it as a poll on each planned meeting. You might be working on increasing wellbeing or connection, or trying to help people cope with new day-to-day lifestyles. You could ask if people feel better for taking part; if they feel better able to cope; if they feel happier for connecting today.

This isn’t just available on Zoom, other systems including ‘Crowdcast’ have these options, so do explore if this is something you could do.

2. Send an online survey

If you are connecting or working with people online, create and send an online survey. We use SurveyMonkey, and would happily recommend it. It’s free for up to 10 questions to fewer than 100 people, and that works well for lots of projects. Today, we have just created a slightly more fancy survey which includes demographic questions, assessment of knowledge and motivation, and marketing and enjoyment. It will take people just a few minutes to complete and the team just have to copy and paste a link into the comments option on each of their webinars. It doesn’t have to be complicated though, and this brings us to our next point…

3. Just ask something

Some information is always better than no information. Just have a go at collecting something. We have recommended simple questions in the past and if in doubt, just ask what people enjoyed; what they think could have gone better; and what they would recommend you do in future.

Good luck working remotely and connecting with people, and we hope you found this mini Covid-19 tips session helpful!