Practice Guide: Evaluating the Effectiveness of a MPHWP
Evaluation is a crucial element of all strategic planning. As we come to a new planning cycle of Municipal Public Health and Wellbeing Plans (MPHWP), we encourage you to take the time to evaluate and reflect on your current MPHWP.
In best practice, an Evaluation Plan would have been created alongside your current MPHWP. An Evaluation Plan outlines the purpose of evaluation, what is to be evaluated, how it will be evaluated (eg. what data is collected and when) and how the evaluation will be reported.
If there is no Evaluation Plan in place, we recommend:
Review your current goals, objectives and strategies – see Table 1.Were they measurable? Achievable? Specific enough?
What is the data telling us? Did we make a difference?
Did we collect the right data?
Did we deliver what we said we did?
Table 1
Whilst it is preferable to evaluate the whole MPHWP, you could focus on one or two of the Goals if resources are limited. Research any new or updated data sets that can be used to evaluate the success of the MPHWP.Some examples are:
Large-scale surveys that publish health and wellbeing data at the local government level.
Crime statistics that can give insight into community safety.
Maternal and child health statistics and immunisation coverage.
Incidence of infectious diseases.
Are there new or increasing issues we need to consider in the next MPHWP? Is there new information about which health promotion strategies are most/least effective?
Reflect with your team. Take the time to meet with those responsible for delivering the MPHWP and its actions (this could be internal staff or external partners).
Were there too many actions? Not enough?
Did we engage effectively with our partners?
Did we influence stakeholders?
Are there particular strategies, objectives or goals that you want to continue into the next MPHWP?
Report and celebrate achievements with stakeholders and partners. Propose changes to the next MPHWP.Write up your learnings from the current MPHP and ensure these are used to inform the next MPHWP. This might include recommending an evaluation plan is developed or recommending that funds be set aside for your own community survey of health and wellbeing behaviours.