aes26 International Evaluation Conference: Full Schedule

Presenter and chair information page, resources for conference presenters, authors and session chairs.

1:30pm ACST

What Does It Take to Make Evaluation Work in Real-World Settings?

Thursday September 17, 2026 1:30pm - 2:30pm ACST

Authors: Mandy Charman, Sarah Ryan

As governments increase focus on outcomes, evidence and accountability, community service organisations are under growing pressure to strengthen data collection, outcomes measurement and evaluation practice. Yet these environments, shaped by complex funding models, reporting requirements and workforce pressures, are rarely designed with evaluation in mind.
This presentation draws on the experience of the Outcomes Practice and Evidence Network within Victoria’s Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare over the past eight years, working across Victoria’s child and family services sector. Positioned between government, service organisations and evaluators, OPEN offers a rare cross-system perspective on how evaluation is experienced in practice.
We will share practical insights, building a grounded understanding of how service settings experience evaluation and how approaches can be adapted to better support learning, improvement and outcomes.
Despite established literature on building organisational evaluative culture, there’s been limited focus on how to achieve this across a whole service system. This presentation reflects on that gap, exploring what it means to support evaluation capability across a sector shaped by cross-system relationships.
The session shares a learning journey rather than fixed model - what has worked, what has not, and what questions this raises.
Three key insights will be explored:
1. Understanding context is foundational – challenges are often structural and relational, not technical.
2. Evaluation support requires adaptation – commonly used approaches may not work as expected in complex service environments; trust, shared language and sustained engagement are critical.
3. This is a system question – strengthening evaluation requires attention to capability and how government expectations, commissioning and evaluation practice interact.
The session, aligning with Boundaries and Bridges and Roots and Routes, combines reflections from OPEN with a community sector partner, alongside interactive discussions exploring grounding evaluation in service contexts while strengthening connections across the evaluation ecosystem.

Chair

Fiona Scott-Melton

Performance And Impact Lead, Allen + Clarke

I have a strong interest and am passionate about outcomes, whether that is at a program or strategic level. My work includes supporting organisations to identify what outcomes they are trying to achieve, so developing logics or Theories of Change, developing performance measures or... Read More →

Speakers

Mandy Charman

Senior Manager Outcomes, Practice and Evidence Network (OPEN), The Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare

Thursday September 17, 2026 1:30pm - 2:30pm ACST
Waterfront 1 Stokes Hill Rd, Darwin City NT, Australia

Boundaries and bridges

Format Long paper
Audience Level Intermediate, Advanced
Industry Community and social services, Not for profit Philanthropy
ID 184

aes26 International Evaluation Conference

1:30pm ACST

Fiona Scott-Melton

Mandy Charman

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