Culturally Responsive Evaluation Event

Culturally responsive evaluation is a collection of practical strategies and frameworks that attend to culture and context when preparing for an evaluation, conducting it, and disseminating and using the results of the study. It is a new paradigm of evaluation, utilizing cultural strengths in a community and aligns perspectives and methods with traditional knowledge, values, worldviews, lived experience and ways of knowing of the community. Culturally responsive evaluation is strength based and culturally meaningful.

This presentation will provide an overview of culturally responsive perspectives, encourage self reflection for capacity awareness and growth, and discuss strategies that attend to equity and inclusiveness in practice that enhance evaluation validity and results.

Rosemary White Shield, PhD, is a Project Manager in the Research, Evaluation and Assessment Department for St. Paul Public Schools. She is the former Director of Evaluation for the Office of Equity and Diversity at the University of Minnesota and former treatment director of Nokomis Endaad Shki Bimaadzi Mikaana (Grandmother’s House-Road to New Life) Mental Illness/Chemical Dependency (MI/CD) Outpatient Treatment Program in Minneapolis. She also works as an evaluation expert (Research Scientist) for the Department of Human Services, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, Education Development Center. She is a private consultant nationally and locally for several projects serving American Indian urban and reservation communities across the United States, a former professor in both the United States and Canada, and is currently the President of the Minnesota Evaluation Association. Her expertise is culturally intrinsic and responsive research, evaluation, program design, technical assistance and training, teacher education, and curriculum development. The Minnesota Department of Corrections is also currently utilizing her culturally meaningful assessment instruments across the state in assessment, case management and training contexts, developed to help reduce the recidivism of Native clients within the system,. Her most recent books, Gifts from the Sacred Circle, a Native traditional parenting curriculum for families affected by FASD, were released in March, 2012. They are published by Hazelden and distributed throughout the Western hemisphere.