Monitoring & Evaluation
Monitoring effectiveness of the action plan
There is often concern about monitoring the numbers of disabled people involved in a project, and an understandable reluctance to ask questions of a personal nature. In most cases there should not be the need to extract personal information from individuals. Some ways of monitoring are as follows:
- Record number of requests for use of facilities such as disabled parking spaces, audio description, hearing induction loop, information in specific format, concessions for disabled people.
- Record meetings / consultations between your organisation and disabled peoples organisations or disabled individuals. Note action points arising from the meetings.
- Organisations running projects which involve groups of disabled people should know how many people are attending.
- Booking forms for attendance on courses or workshops should ask "Do you have any specific access requirements?" Keep a record of the number of people requesting a specific facility or adjustment.
- During annual appraisals, staff should routinely asked if they have any access requirements, in order to make the working environment more accessible. The same questions about access requirements should be asked of all board members, members of advisory groups and volunteers.
- If a specific facility is in place as part of an audience development initiative, this may be a good opportunity to measure take-up. E.g. text message facility for booking tickets for a Deaf arts event.
Evaluation
All aspects of the organisations' services that involve disabled people should include evaluation that is accessible to the people responding.
Ask people how they prefer to complete an evaluation; as many options as possible should be available.
Consider: video camera, tape recorder, evaluation form on website, telephone call, verbal evaluation in group, verbal evaluation 1:1.
Ensure that the language in the evaluation form is appropriately worded and easy to understand. Avoid any un-necessary jargon.
When evaluating, always ask if the project or event was accessible, and whether the respondent has any comments to make about accessibility.
