System-informed Empowerment Evaluation

 

System-informed Empowerment Evaluation

Systems-Informed Empowerment Evaluation (SIEE) is a theory-based, collaborative approach that identifies, aligns, and centers stakeholder priorities toward mutual understanding. This methodology helps evaluators address a variety of complexities associated with external program evaluation.

Developed using key principles from Empowerment Evaluation and Systems Evaluation, SIEE leverages the unique aspects of each to design a basic framing and set of guiding steps. Specifically, SIEE challenges evaluators to prioritize stakeholder empowerment and evaluation use in a manner that is uniquely responsive to the complex socioecological systems under which all programs exist within. SIEE is grounded by values that reflect the tenets of Transformative Evaluation, Culturally Responsive Evaluation, and LGBTQ+ Evaluation. To this end, SIEE is designed to complement any evaluation approach, enhancing aspects of self-determination necessary to propel empowerment activities. 

Dr. Gregory Phillips II, Assistant Professor at Northwestern University, and his team first conceived of SIEE in 2015, and have since then leveraged the framework to inform the evaluative work they are doing with the Chicago Department of Public Health. This has included multiple projects within the HIV funding portfolio, a mental health initiative, and work with shelter-based service teams to explore the impact of COVID-19 on unstably housed individuals.