The SIMNA Victoria Organising Committee invites you to their upcoming event to consider values literacy. This webinar and mini-workshop will introduce an innovative way in which we can actively identify, apply and communicate values for our social impact and evaluation practice.
When: Tuesday 30 July 2024, 12:00-13:30 AEST
Where: Online (via Zoom)
Tickets: Free for SIMNA members. $15 for non-members. Tickets are available here.
Event overview
As professionals striving for social change, measuring, and evaluating the impact of social initiatives, we recognise that values play a crucial role in shaping the environments in which we work. Our methods, work processes and the relationships we navigate to plan, do and report on projects are fundamentally influenced by the values held. What has been missing is our ability to talk explicitly about how values frame our processes, methods and approach, and to call on our values framing to identify misalignment, and objectively address differences that minimise conflict with stakeholders.
Increasing our own values literacy will better improve our project processes, stakeholder relationships, and outcomes. This approach to values literacy is:
- Personal – focused on values you as an individual bring to social impact measurement and evaluation (not aspirational or organisational values or attributes, although there may be overlap).
- Deep – supporting you to explore and articulate the values at the core of your experiences of work-related unrest or frustration.
- Applied – working to convert values to actionable statements to guide your actions and conversations with others.
The presenters will define values with a focus on the professional and epistemological, as well as highlight the role of values in social impact measurement, project partnerships, rigour and credibility of findings. A case study based on a familiar collaborative project of social impact measurement involving several stakeholders will enable exploration and articulation of individual values, which will be transitioned into actionable statements. Discussions will introduce values into communication practices to address misalignment and reduce conflict.
About the presenters
Dr Samantha Abbato is an experienced trainer with more than twenty-five years of health and community sector experience and strong methodological expertise across qualitative and quantitative disciplines, including public health, epidemiology, medical anthropology, biostatistics, and mathematics. She engages in a utilisation-focused approach, mixed (qualitative and quantitative) methods, and evaluation case studies and stories for building evaluation capacity and making a difference in the health and community sectors. Sam is passionate about the central role values play in successful and ethical evaluation work and the importance of increasing the ability of evaluators and others to identify, communicate and use values to ground and guide their work.
Dr Wendy Muller is a registered and endorsed Organisational Psychologist. As an experienced consultant, Wendy has established significant knowledge and skills in the provision of end-to-end facilitation of clinical and organisational interventions, including psychological assessments, organisational health reviews, workplace mediations, coaching, supervision and leadership development. Wendy holds a Doctorate of Psychology (Organisational) in addition to a Master of Human Resources Management. As a passionate researcher, Wendy is recognised for the qualitative investigation of work-related psychological stress and strain on the romantic relationship, regularly presenting at conferences and forums.