Introduction
Understanding the implementation and effectiveness of adolescent pregnancy prevention efforts is critical to supporting healthy youth development and well-being, a key goal of the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families’ Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB). Through FYSB’s Tribal Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP), Tribal PREP grantees across the country are implementing culturally responsive programs to prevent pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections among American Indian and Alaska Native youth. As part of their grants, Tribal PREP grantees are conducting descriptive evaluations which will contribute to the understanding and improvement of approaches for preventing pregnancy and STIs among Native youth.
This resource was originally developed to assist Tribal PREP grantees with their local evaluations. It provides an overview of Native community methodologies in evaluation by describing Native community and Western paradigms and Native community evaluation frameworks, making important distinctions between fundamental terms, outlining key concepts, and providing examples of how to apply Native community methodologies and methods in practice.
This product is one of several developed through the PLESD Project. PLESD builds and expands the adolescent pregnancy prevention knowledge base by supporting PREP grantees in conducting rigorous local evaluations to improve programming and to generate evidence of effective approaches for preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections among adolescents.
Purpose
This resource is designed to support the application of Native community methodologies in evaluations and the use of specific methods that align with these methodologies. More broadly, it seeks to contribute to a comprehensive body of knowledge on how Native community methodologies can enrich evaluations conducted with Native populations. Many of the principles around participatory evaluation in Tribal Nations and Indigenous communities are also useful to other evaluators and minoritized communities, and we believe this resource has a wide audience -- it can be useful to anyone interested in designing or implementing a high-quality evaluation in Native communities and can enrich evaluations with non-Indigenous populations as well.
Key Findings and Highlights
Highlights of this resource include:
An overview of Western and Native community paradigms
A discussion of key features of Native methodologies and related evaluation methods
A presentation of three Native community evaluation frameworks: (1) the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) Framework, (2) the Roadmap for Collaborative and Effective Evaluation in Tribal Communities, and (3) a Native community medicine wheel model of evaluation
Examples of how to apply Native methodologies and methods throughout the evaluation process, including building trust with communities, evaluation planning, evaluation implementation, analysis and interpretation of findings, dissemination of results, and engaging Native community youth in the evaluation process
Reference to additional resources on Native methodologies
Citation
Gordon, H.S.J., Ayoub, C., Grant, J., and Blocklin, M. (2024). Engaging Native Populations in Evaluation through Native Community Methodologies. OPRE Report 2024-180, Washington, DC: Office of Research, Planning, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, US Department of Health and Human Services.
Glossary
- ACF:
- Administration for Children and Families
- OPRE:
- Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation
- FYSB:
- Family and Youth Services Bureau
- PLESD:
- PREP Local Evaluation Support and Dissemination
- PREP:
- Personal Responsibility Education Program