Which Resources Are Right For Me?

While the field of male engagement has seen incredible growth in the past decade, it is still largely an experimental field. In order to refine tactics, tools and approaches to be most effective in promoting healthy masculinities over the long-term and sustaining behavioural change, strong evaluation is needed.

Evaluation is most important when clear links between interventions and desired outcomes are not known. In new and experimental areas where links have not been established Developmental Evaluation[1] may be the most appropriate method to apply.

[1] Developmental evaluation is defined as follows:  Developmental evaluation supports the process of innovation within an organization and in its activities. Initiatives that are innovative are often in a state of continuous development and adaptation, and they frequently unfold in a changing and unpredictable environment. This intentional effort to innovate is a kind of organizational exploration. The destination is often a notion rather than a crisp image, and the path forward may be unclear. Much is in flux: the framing of the issue can change, how the problem is conceptualized evolves and various approaches are likely to be tested. Adaptations are largely driven by new learning and by changes in participants, partners and context.  (Jamie A.A. Gamble, A Developmental Evaluation Primer, p. 13)

Being able to clearly communicate core outcomes, for example, enhanced knowledge and understanding of positive roles men and boys can play, can foster accountability with women’s organizations and shelters, by clearly demonstrating your impact. Showing your commitment to assessing changes in men and boys is essential towards sound programmatic approaches and adding to the evidence-base.

Meaningful evaluation methodology, such as Sharing the Stories (Students Commission of Canada) can also be a forum to promote diverse youth voices and stories of change. Evaluation can be conceptualized as a transformative and engagement tool throughout the gender-based violence prevention initiative.

Thoughtful evaluation process can ensure programmatic content is resonating and being utilized by participants across the gender spectrum, whilst being open to adaptation and change. Integrating feedback from participants on an ongoing basis can ensure the program is an inspired one and is highly engaging with participants.

The cost/benefit of specific interventions used for engaging boys and men in GBV prevention are not widely established and therefore evaluation work will assist in building a case for prevention-focused interventions, which prove to be most effective over time.

Prevention work requires sustained and long-term approaches to ending all forms of violence against women and girls, men and boys, therefore strong and longitudinal evaluation efforts will assist in documenting the impact on reducing the prevalence of GBV

Social dynamics that perpetuate gender-based violence perpetrated by men and boys is not well documented. This means that evaluation work in this area may help to uncover behavioural trends and largely hidden power structures that if understood could lead to the development of more effective approaches to combat the underlying, pervasive gender norms and stereotypes that lead to gender-based violence.

Many assumptions about engaging men and boys can be verified or falsified through combining interventions with strong evaluation efforts. One assumption that one group made which was supported by the experience of some facilitators was that boys and men needed to be engaged in mixed-gender groups and not on their own, and that this would be most effective because men and boys would be held accountable to women and girls, could learn to appreciate their perspectives and hear their stories.  A robust set of evaluation practices could be used to compare and evaluation the results of a group of men and boys who were engaged in a mixed gender group versus a group that is solely composed of male-identifying participants.

Indicators are used frequently throughout evaluation work in the GBV prevention work aimed at engaging men and boys. As stand-ins for more direct indicators, proxy indicators may turn out to be insufficient in substantiating intended outcomes.  For example, a proxy indicator for the outcome of increased awareness of GBV might be the number of GBV related issues covered by the media over a period of time.  In reality, an increase in awareness may not result from GBV issues being covered by the local media, say for example if the coverage of the GBV issue was slanted (i.e. supporting the dominant discourse) or if other media coverage based on gender norms/stereotypes was more frequent during the same time period. See the National Evaluation Framework for sample indicators and outcome areas which might apply to your male engagement program. Tweet at @Canada_NCoP to share how you’re using the framework.