Beacon Strategies worked with Mama Respond International to evaluate the (Out)Reaching Strong Mamas program, combining participant surveys and in-depth interviews to understand what changed for mothers and caregivers, how change occurred and how the program could continue to improve as it expanded.
About
SERVICE: Evaluation and impact measurement
SECTOR: Not-for-profit (International)
STATUS: Completed 2026
CLIENT: Mama Respond International
Background
Mama Respond International delivers the (Out)Reaching Strong Mamas program across five sites in Kenya. The program brings together mothers and caregivers of children with disabilities through three connected phases: group-based training, community outreach led by program graduates, and table banking arrangements that support household and group economic resilience.
Following earlier pilots in Noonkopir and Athi River, Mama Respond expanded the program to Kitengela, Langata Kibera, Ruiru, Athi River and Noonkopir. The expansion created a need for a formal evaluation that could test whether the program continued to achieve its intended outcomes as it grew, strengthen accountability to funders and partners, support ongoing learning, and inform future decisions about adaptation and scale.
Approach
We developed and implemented a theory-informed, mixed-methods evaluation that measured change over time and explored how participants experienced the program.
Developed a theory of change connecting training, outreach and table banking with expected short-, medium- and long-term outcomes.
Established six evaluation domains covering maternal capability and wellbeing, social inclusion and peer support, community norms and stigma, service access and navigation, household economic pressure and perceived stability, and sustainability of change.
Designed a participant survey incorporating established measures of wellbeing and psychological distress alongside program-specific questions.
Combined baseline and endline survey data with in-depth participant interviews conducted at baseline, midline and endline.
Analysed quantitative and qualitative evidence together to identify areas of agreement, difference and explanatory insight.
Embedded voluntary participation, informed consent, confidentiality, safeguarding and appropriate data governance throughout the evaluation.
Translated the findings into practical priorities for program delivery, continued monitoring and future evaluation as Strong Mamas expands.
Project deliverable
(Out)Reaching Strong Mamas Evaluation: the final evaluation brought together the program model and theory of change, evaluation framework, participant survey results, in-depth interview findings, a participant case story, integrated analysis and practical priorities for the program’s next stage. [Strong Mam...per v2.pdf | PDF]
Outcome
The evaluation found that participants finished Strong Mamas with improved wellbeing, lower psychological distress and greater knowledge of where to seek help for their children. The mean WHO-5 wellbeing score increased from 35.8 at baseline to 53.6 at endline, while the number of participants scoring below the conventional poor-wellbeing threshold fell from 19 of 26 to 8 of 17.
Interview findings helped explain how these changes occurred. Participants described the value of having their own mental health recognised, gaining language to explain their child’s disability, connecting with others in similar circumstances and developing greater confidence when engaging with families, communities and services. The interviews also highlighted continuing challenges associated with stigma, discrimination, service access and household financial pressure.
The findings were translated into clear priorities for the next stage of Strong Mamas: protecting the program’s mental health and disability education content, creating more time for questions and participant support, helping groups continue beyond the taught program cycle, expanding the program to more mothers, and scaling the evaluation alongside delivery.
Link to our vision
A more impactful social purpose sector: this project supports our vision by helping a community-led program demonstrate its contribution, learn directly from participant experience and use evidence to guide improvement and responsible growth. The evaluation gives Mama Respond International a practical foundation for strengthening delivery, communicating impact and extending support to more mothers and caregivers of children with disabilities.
How we can help
We support not-for-profit and social purpose organisations to develop practical evaluation frameworks, combine quantitative and qualitative evidence, understand how programs create change, and translate findings into decisions about improvement, sustainability and scale.
Explore more of our work in Evaluation and Impact Measurement and the Not-for-profit Sector here