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This collection of webinars, presentations, and conference sessions highlights Hands Up Mallee’s ongoing contribution to national conversations about community-led, place-based approaches and innovative Measurement, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) and collaborative design practices.
Measurement, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) approaches underpinning Hands Up Mallee’s place-based work was delivered at the Australasian Evaluation Society (AES) Conference in 2023.
The presentation outlined the development and use of a MEL Framework designed to be inclusive, usable and accessible, and how this framework is embedded in our work through multiple, connected MEL approaches (including an overarching MEL framework to track long-term system and population change, nested MELs aligned to priority cohorts and focus areas, and participatory mini-MELs embedded within projects to support real-time learning and adaptation. (Learn more about Hands Up Mallee MEL Framework here)
The session also highlighted Clear Horizon’s role in facilitating co-design, coaching and shaping and sense-making processes, and in developing a practical MEL Framework and Toolkit. Together, these approaches enable shared ownership of evaluation, strengthen local MEL capability, and creation of a clear line of sight between local action, learning and longer-term outcomes.
The “Community listening: What happens when we start with children and families?” webinar was hosted by he Centre for Community Child Health on 31 May 2022 as part of the Thriving Children, Thriving Communities series. Chaired by Vikki Leone, the session brings together research, policy and lived experience to examine why traditional service-led responses have struggled to reduce inequity for children and families. Dr Tim Moore presents a research overview outlining how rapid social change, widening disadvantage and complex social problems require a shift towards listening more deeply to families and communities.
The webinar highlights the importance of addressing the conditions families need to raise children well, recognising lived experience as a critical source of knowledge alongside evidence and data. Contributions from Tara Day-Williams (Stronger Places, Stronger People) and Catherine Thompson and Kerry Laming (on behalf of Hands Up Mallee) provide practical examples of how community listening, relationship-building and shared decision-making are being applied in place-based work to better respond to local needs and priorities.
In this Clear Horizon Academy video, Hands Up Mallee is featured as a case study (Hands Up Mallee: Meet the community improving children’s wellbeing) demonstrating how place-based, systems-change initiatives can be evaluated in ways that centre community voice while building meaningful evidence over time.
For the past 3 years, Fiona Merlin from Hands Up Mallee has been regularly invited as a guest speaker to contribute to the Clear Horizon Academy learning modules on evaluating community-led place-based Approaches by presenting their shared Measurement, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Journey and how It embeds community voices in evaluation practices.
This video highlights the practical challenges of measuring long-term, population-level change with limited resources and diverse partners, and shows how collaborative capacity building, shared learning and joint sense-making have been embedded into everyday ways of working to strengthen accountability, adaptability and outcomes for children, young people and families in the Northern Mallee.
