About me
Jen Lorains is the Director of Research & Evaluation at Children’s Ground. She works with each community to evaluate and evidence the impact of Children’s Ground’s empowerment, systems reform and integrated service platform.
Jen has undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications in applied social research and over 15 years experience designing and undertaking research and evaluation with communities and services. Her interest lies in working with communities to implement and evaluate approaches (within participatory action research models) that are place-based, collaborative and seek to build on community empowerment to improve outcomes.
Jen has worked in research and evaluation roles with services and communities in early childhood, school transition, mental health promotion, consumer participation in health, learning, youth engagement and healthy sporting clubs. She has undertaken research within and with a diverse range of stakeholders, including local and state governments, non-government organisations, research institutions, universities and community led research initiatives.
