Trauma Counselling and Emergency Relief Evaluations: Community Gateway
Status: Completed September 2021
Client: Community Gateway
Background
Community Gateway provides welfare and community capacity building programs for disadvantaged individuals and communities. Their services and programs extend to the Far North Coast, New England, Mid North Coast and across New South Wales.
Beacon Strategies and Community Gateway have previously partnered to evaluate the Flourishing Families Program, evaluate the Managing Spontaneous Volunteers Project and develop a Purpose and Practice Framework.
This project had Beacon Strategies supporting Community Gateway to evaluate two of their programs, Trauma Counselling and Emergency Relief.
Approach
Our evaluation approach for this project followed four distinct steps:
Program definition
Undertook research and engagement to gain a thorough understanding of each of the programs. This phase included identifying key drivers and priorities for the evaluation, to ensure the evaluation scope aligned closely with them.
Evaluation planning
Based on the gained understanding through the program definition phase, an evaluation plan was developed and endorsed by Community Gateway to guide evaluation activities.
Evaluation activities
Activities outlined in the plan were carried out and data was captured to develop a final evaluation report.
Evaluation reporting
An evaluation report was be developed that outlined findings, implications and recommendations for each program.
Outcomes
We undertook a targeted evaluation of the transition to virtual delivery of two NRCG programs — Trauma Counselling and First Step Emergency Relief.
The final evaluation report included key findings and recommendations around continuing to deliver services virtually into the future, as well as where to leverage opportunities that would strengthen practice.
We also provided further advice around the expected benefits and steps for implementating the recommendations.
Impact
This project aligned with our mission to create an impactful social sector by helping Community Gateway improve its services for both staff and clients, thereby improving disadvantaged communities.
The Increased efficiency of services provided will enhance client accessibility, increase staff capability and respond to the underlying issues that contribute to emergency relief.
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