A Roadmap for Collaborative and Effective Evaluation in Tribal Communities
Many Tribal communities have experienced deep, intergenerational trauma. Evaluation activities have generally been imposed on Native communities by funding agencies that view evaluation from the dominant cultural paradigm, fail to recognize the sovereignty of Tribes, and don’t take advantage of long traditions of successful evaluation strategies that draw on indigenous practice. In some cases, research has actually harmed and exploited Native culture and ignored community rights. These experiences have contributed fearful reluctance to engage in evaluation. To address these challenges in child welfare, the Children’s Bureau formed a diverse workgroup, with representatives from Tribal child welfare programs, who developed this Roadmap for Co-Creating Collaborative & Effective Evaluation To Improve Tribal Child Welfare Programs. This tool can be used to understand best practices for evaluation with Tribal populations, and can be applied to HMRE.
