Melissa Tremblay (Lac St Anne Métis Community Association) on Moving Beyond Partnerships to Indigenous-Led Evaluation

I notice that people use that term Indigenous evaluation to describe two different things. Sometimes we use the term Indigenous evaluation to describe evaluation that’s maybe taking place in partnership with Indigenous communities or being done with an Indigenous organization or Indigenous Peoples. But doing evaluation with an Indigenous organization or Indigenous Peoples doesn’t always translate to doing evaluation in a way that incorporates Indigenous evaluation principles. So when I use the term Indigenous evaluation, I mean evaluation that prioritizes relationality, that makes space for community to take the reins and lead aspects of an evaluation, that recognizes that community has expertise in approaches, that has accountability to community at heart, and that really centers Indigenous ways of knowing.

At the core I think Indigenous evaluation is important so that stories about Indigenous peoples, communities, and programs can be told by Indigenous people themselves. And the metrics that we often use when we’re doing more conventional evaluations are often misaligned with community priorities. So we may have externally-defined targets for the number of people served, or we may use our pre- and post-program validated questionnaires to be able to say something a funder wants to understand about a program, to determine if it’s “working” or not. But those pieces of information, although they serve a purpose in approaches defined by a non-Indigenous perspective, may not be the most important ones to the people on the ground who are delivering those services, or to the people who are receiving those services. Instead, when we work in a relational way to co-create different metrics and ways of understanding a program or a project, then we can end up with understandings that mean a whole lot more to the communities that we’re working with, I think.

About the author

name: Melissa Tremblay, PhD, RPsych (Lac St Anne Métis Community Association)

institution: University of Alberta

Dr. Melissa Tremblay is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta and a Registered Psychologist. She is a citizen of the Métis Nation of Alberta and a member of the Lac St Anne Métis Community Association. Melissa has worked in the field of evaluation for over ten years, and maintains a private evaluation practice. Her research and clinical background is focused on children’s mental health, working with Indigenous children and families from a strength-based perspective, and exploring the development and resilience of Indigenous children, youth, and families. Melissa’s research takes a relational, community-grounded approach and has allowed her the privilege of working in partnership with Indigenous peoples, communities, schools, and agencies across the country.