Members of PHIRST Elevate delivered a 2 day training course on evaluation methods and knowledge mobilisation to Durham’s public health teams.

PHIRST Elevate have been working with Durham County Council to evaluate the Horden Together Partnership. An initiative to improve the lives of people living in Horden, a former mining village in the North East of England.

As part of their collaboration Elevate team members Paul Kelly and Sarah Janac provided 2 days of training to the wider public health team in Durham looking at the principles of evaluation and knowledge mobilisation.

Day 1 kicked off with a lively discussion about what is research and what is evaluation and whether its the same, similar or different.

Paul then took the group through the principles of evaluation and an evaluation planning tool. His clear and simple explanation of logic models and how to apply them to different projects was definitely one of the highlights of the day.

On day 2 members of the public health team shared some of the projects they’re currently working on and fed back on how they intend to embed the learning into their own practice.

Keeping the session relevant to the local landscape we were grateful to Ali Turner from the Horden Together Partnership who gave a truly inspiring insight into the work of the HTP and the difference it has made to the local community.

The group also heard from Julie Englund, Durham’s Local Authority Research Practitioner (LARP) who shared her experience of being an embedded researcher on the HTP evaluation. In some evaluations PHIRST can fund an Embedded Researcher role for a defined period that allows them protected time within their current employment to dedicate to the evaluation. They assist the PHIRST team to navigate the internal processes of the organisation. In return they are given the opportunity to work on all aspects of the research and develop their knowledge and skills.

In the afternoon Sarah Janac, Elevate’s Knowledge Mobilisation lead discussed audiences and outputs. She ran through some of the different materials PHIRST has created to share evaluation findings. She shared different strategies she uses to try and mobilise the knowledge from evaluations so that it can be used by the wider public health community – rather than just gathering dust on a shelf.

We’re grateful to the Durham public health team for making the time to commit to the training, enriching the sessions by sharing their own experiences and for their enthusiasm at taking part in the different tasks.

=> Learn more about PHIRST Elevate

=> Learn more about the Horden Together Partnership evaluation

=> Check out Sarah’s Knowledge Mobilisation blog on the University of Edinburgh website