aes26 International Evaluation Conference

Authors Fergus Bailey, ARTD, Jade Maloney, ARTD
Australia’s Disability Strategy 2021-2031 emphasises the importance of inclusive practices across all sectors, including evaluation. We all have a role to play in achieving the vision of an inclusive Australian society that ensures people with disability can fulfil their potential, as equal members of the community.

At the 2025 AES conference, Melinda Nicholls, Amanda Charles, and Jane Spring AM introduced a practical guide to facilitate meaningful inclusion of people with disability in evaluation, embedding lived experience and promoting equitable participation.

ARTD Consultants is conducting the mid-term evaluation of Australia’s Disability Strategy 2021-2031, using the guide and their own lived experience evaluation framework for a lived experience centred approach. This a significant test of the guide in action.

In this panel, DHDA staff, Jade Maloney (CEO, ARTD Consultants), Fergus Bailey (Senior Consultant, ARTD Consultants), and lived experience representatives will discuss how the perspectives of people with lived experience were centred throughout the evaluation - in key evaluation team roles (including ARTD staff and a lived experience team), governance roles (e.g. Steering Committee), and consultation with people with disability across Australia.

They will provide perspectives as commissioners, evaluators, and people with lived experience on how the guide was operationalised for this process and the benefits to the evaluation.

They will share practical advice for how evaluators can effectively engage people with disability in leading and contributing to evaluations, which are applicable to engaging people with lived experience more broadly in evaluation governance, design and delivery roles, including tailored approaches for diverse communities.

After a presentation and discussion, Jade Maloney will facilitate questions as an experienced AES presenter and moderator, prompting around barriers, enablers, risk management, how challenges accommodated, and other considerations for this approach. Following the session the team will share learnings for the future with broader AES members.