MORE THAN WORDS LOOKING BACK & DETERMINING THE PATH AHEAD

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This document was produced by the Participatory Cultures Lab, Faculty of

Education, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada in May 2020. We

are grateful to Pamela Teitelbaum, Consulting Director, Evaluating Impact,

Tamarack Learning Centre and the More than Words Implementation Team

and the More Than Words Advisory Committee for their help in developing

these guiding principles and the document overall.

More than Words is supported through the Women and Gender Equality

Canada (WAGE) project number GV18084-01, Gender-Based Violence

program Promising Practices to Support Survivors and their Families.

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“The term evaluation is not an Indigenous concept”

“What comes close to the term evaluation reflects a

personal process of deep reflection and

contemplation. This is more about a process: looking

back and seeing what worked, what didn’t, and

then determining the path ahead.”

Na-gah mo Waabishkizi Ojijaak Bimise Keetwaatino: Singing White Crane Flying

North: Gathering a Bundle for Indigenous Evaluation, March 2018, CCPA

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

OVERALL PROJECT ............................................................................................................... 5

WHAT MAKES A PRINCIPLE EVALUABLE? ........................................................................... 6

GUIDING PRINCIPLES OF MORE THAN WORDS .................................................................. 6

PRINCIPLE 1: ACKNOWLEDGING THE UNIQUENESS OF COMMUNITIES ............................ 7

PRINCIPLE 2: A GROUNDING IN LOCAL INDIGENOUS PERSPECTIVES ................................. 7

PRINCIPLE 3: BUILDING RESPECTFUL AND RECIPROCAL RELATIONSHIPS .......................... 9

PRINCIPLE 4: A COMMITMENT TO YOUTH-LED APPROACHES ........................................... 9

PRINCIPLE 5: ENSURING ONGOING, INFORMED CONSENT ................................................ 9

PRINCIPLE 6: A COMMITMENT TO CULTURE, CEREMONY AND CULTURAL ENGAGEMENT

THROUGH THE ARTS AND STORYTELLING ........................................................................ 10

PRINCIPLE 7: A COMMITMENT TO DYNAMIC POWER-SHARING...................................... 11

PRINCIPLE 8: A COMMITMENT TO STRENGTHS-BASED, TRAUMA-INFORMED WORK .... 12

PRINCIPLE 9: RESPECTING AND VALUING INTERGENERATIONAL CULTURAL PRACTICES 13

REFERENCES ...................................................................................................................... 14

APPPENDIX A ..................................................................................................................... 15

METHODS AND TOOLS FOR LOOKING BACK AND DETERMINING THE PATH AHEAD ..... 15

SUGGESTED METHOD APPLICATION TO ASSESS EACH PRINCIPLE ................................... 19

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OVERALL PROJECT

In line with the ultimate goal of WAGE (Women and Gender Equality, formerly Status of Women Canada) of providing better support from across sectors to Gender-Based Violence (GBV) survivors and their families, the More than Words (MTW) project aims not only to strengthen support of Indigenous young people (especially girls and young women) survivors of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) and their families, but as well seeks to empower these young people as leaders and mentors within their communities. This 4-year project seeks to study the value of Indigenous-focused, youth-led survivor engagement through the arts, looking at the impact on the producers themselves (young people) and on their families and communities in relation to their experiences of SGBV. As outlined in the Project Implementation Plan the project aims to influence change by ensuring

in the long term that:

1. SGBV survivors and their families in Indigenous communities are better supported through established Indigenous systems/structures.

2. Youth involvement in governing structures and decision-making will lead to policy changes and programs that integrate more supports for survivors of SGBV.

3. Adaptive, arts-based, participatory and Indigenous-focused mentoring and community education programming and community-based organization’s work is well resourced at the community level.

4. Improved integration of Indigenous youth mentorship processes and programs at the community level.

5. A trail or bundle l (a.k.a. Blueprint)1 being adopted and adapted by youth and other community-based organization in other Indigenous communities nationally (Scaling up the MTW Trail or Bundle)

6. Integrated arts-based, youth led, Indigenous focused initiatives on supporting survivor of SGBV and their families are systematically adopted in Indigenous and Inuit communities across Canada.

7. Youth participation is integrated as a systematic component of the governance and decision- making structures in Indigenous and Inuit communities across Canada.

The ‘looking back …’ process is meant to focus on how we’ve been doing. In adopting a principles-based approach to ‘looking back ..’ , it is critical for our team to come to an agreement on what are the most relevant guiding principles, and to identify some ways that these principles could be studied either internally by team members, community or young people themselves, or externally. The following principles come out of the experiences of the Networks for Change project (as identified at the time of drafting the More Than Words

1Based on several internal discussions among members of the Project Implementation Team, when referring to the ‘Blueprint’ for this project, the team is searching for more acceptable terminology (eg the Trail or the Bundle).

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proposal) , and connect to discussions over several meetings with the Project Implementation Team, the Advisory Committee, and the researchers and practitioners of the More Than Words Dialogue Meeting in October 2019. Please see Appendix A for a beginning collection of tools and methods that could be used either internally or externally.

WHAT MAKES A PRINCIPLE EVALUABLE?

1. Principles are clear, meaningful, and actionable, and are derived from experience, expertise, values, and research.

2. Evaluating principles is focused on whether principles are actually being respected/followed.

3. Tools and approaches focus on the extent to which principles are being respected/followed, and that doing this is leading to desired results.

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GUIDING PRINCIPLES OF MORE THAN WORDS

PRINCIPLE 1: ACKNOWLEDGING THE UNIQUENESS OF COMMUNITIES

We acknowledge that each community, including those that may use the blueprint/trail/bundle in the future, have their own unique culture, characteristics, identity, ways of doing and complex social systems. We will value the uniqueness of communities as we move the More Than Words activities and research forward, and embrace that each community will carry out research activities, collect data and produce outputs in their own ways. At the same time we will make space for communities to collaborate, share and learn from one another. Weaving together these unique social fabrics will, we hope, contribute towards a collective understanding about how the More Than Words activities, research and Trail are being valued and appreciated. By seeing things through this lens, we can create a ground to seed the More Than Words approach and process, and encourage communities to use the Trail in ways that make sense to their them and their changemakers.

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PRINCIPLE 2: A GROUNDING IN LOCAL INDIGENOUS PERSPECTIVES

Grounding More Than Words in local Indigenous-centred perspectives is considered a core principle and critical to the work of this project. Activities, research, and reflection of More Than Words, will be grounded in site locations’ unique local Indigenous perspectives, practices, traditions, cultures and identities and grounded in local Indigenous values/principles. The project’s structure is designed to include Indigenous persons (i.e. community scholars, Elders, social change experts, youth, evaluators, and researchers) in the project’s research and activities, as well as the reflection process of looking back and seeing ahead. By including this principle as a framing mechanism for the project, we are also making a commitment to challenge what we understand as Indigenous-centred perspectives, as these vary greatly across communities, regions and demographics (i.e. urban vs. reserve; northern-southern ).

- Recognise different and diverse Indigenous perspectives; ensure the participants are determining what those perspectives are/look like.

- Be responsive to the community’s evaluation capacity, needs, and wants throughout the project.

- Ensure that team members respect the time it takes to build trust and relationships, and respect the boundaries set by the communities involved in the project.

- Be implemented with a level of flexibility that respects the quality of the project while at the same time remains responsive, and flexible, so as to adapt to challenges that arise.

- Establish a mechanism that values input from the communities, and multiple perspectives involved as a way of striking a balance between communities’ needs to input and not to overwhelm them with too many requests, especially from those members of the Project Implementation Team that are from outside the community.

- Acknowledge the specific contributions the project like this will have within the greater context of contributions within the community that promote health and well-being.

- Acknowledge the diversity and unique characteristics of communities to ensure that success and growth/scale will be considered within this context of diversity and measured appropriately

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PRINCIPLE 3: BUILDING RESPECTFUL AND RECIPROCAL RELATIONSHIPS

Respectful, reciprocal and authentic relationships are at the heart of More than Words. We will develop relationships of trust with participants, families, communities, researchers, scholars, staff, partners and our wider Indigenous-focused national network on the arts in youth-led approaches to support SGBV survivors and their families. Through our work we will be ever mindful of giving appropriate space, time and resources to develop genuine relationships with all actors in the MTW community. Only by respecting ceremony and the sacred, cultural, spiritual, physical and mental well-being of individuals, families, and communities, can meaningful work and evaluation take place.

PRINCIPLE 4: A COMMITMENT TO YOUTH-LED APPROACHES

Youth are at the centre of More than Words. We value youth-led approaches and processes, while ensuring these are context & community-grounded. Through More than Words, youth will build skills and capacities, participate in emotional strengthening, strengthening sense of place and relationships within their communities. Ensuring safety and security leaves ample room for mentored discovery. Important elements raised by the implementation team include:

- Local youth determine how they want to be involved - Work with young people starts with reflecting on, and addressing their concerns - Adults provide a safe space, logistical and emotional support, and ongoing

negotiations with young people as to the clear expectations for the work - Mentorship/Aunty-ship is established as the basis for experiential learning and

knowledge sharing space.

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PRINCIPLE 5: ENSURING ONGOING, INFORMED CONSENT

An essential, central element of our work is to facilitate continuous informed consent from all participants throughout the project activities. Consent is fundamental to cohesion, engagement, and strong community relations. Ongoing consent ensures participants are given input into how their participation, stories and data are used throughout the project and how it is shared. Particular to the activities, research and MTW media, the notion of ongoing consent is a key practice when engaging any member of the community and representing individuals and their work. As a practice, the process of ongoing, informed consent helps build trust and safe environments for creativity and collaboration.

PRINCIPLE 6: A COMMITMENT TO CULTURE, CEREMONY AND CULTURAL ENGAGEMENT THROUGH THE ARTS AND STORYTELLING

Activities, research, and reflection in More Than Words, are rooted in arts-based approaches to working with youth, and led by youth to promote social change within their communities. Cultural and ceremonial practices are at the root of all activities. For some, storytelling is a foundational practice, and for others ceremony is central for reflecting on what happened, and reflecting forward, in respect to knowledge-sharing, , capacity-building, and a process used for relationship building. Through More than Words, youth will be given space, time and resources to practice their own culture heritage, tell their own stories and to mentor one another in storytelling through arts-based methods.

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PRINCIPLE 7: A COMMITMENT TO DYNAMIC POWER-SHARING.

Through More Than Words, we hope to redefine and maintain a vision of how relationships are built and sustained. We look to encourage attitudes of collaboration and partnership, intended to shift towards dynamic power-sharing among community organizations, leadership, institutions and young people. Dynamic power-sharing is a system of power sharing that is constantly changing and responsive. Colonial power systems typically distribute power unevenly, so that it rests within the hands of the few. Dynamic power-sharing can be considered as a decolonizing-power approach – where power gets re-distributed on a contestant basis to respond to all the needs of the stakeholders involved.

Uneven traditional colonial power distribution Dynamic shared power distribution

As a means to ensuring that youth are included in this process, this approach aims to ensure that the youth voices, and marginalized people will also be included in this distribution of power, creating a space for a more balanced voice. An important aspect of this, is to create a space where youth can be the guides to doing, make sure they are not only at the heart of what we do, but also receiving all the resources they need to have their voices heard. Continuous informed consent is an important part of this process. Some suggested ways of doing this is to ensure with resource provisions that:

- Youth led organizations participate, and youth must be compensated for their time and expenses.

- Youth supports in the form of orientations/trainings provided to help them understand the power dynamics that exist and the dynamic power-sharing that the More Than Words activities and research is aiming to strengthen

- Youth supports and knowledge mobilization to have their voices heard (Adults need similar training about how to get out of the way).

- Youth in need of mentorship and safety net are prioritized and provided a space for them to speak or enabled to create a space for themselves.

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- Need to practice self-care. Put people around them to protect them. May need to mediate for those who do not know how to share”

In exploring the above, the MTW project approach aims to “break down power dynamics and change the rules “of conventional” engagement among community members, where “youth feel silenced. MTW will promote the practice of producing a back-up plan (safety net) for youth engaged in the interventions. Another important way of creating a dynamic power-sharing is to lessen the gap between adults and youth by establishing a conscientiousness regarding youth participation and power-sharing. A suggested approach is to ensure that throughout the MTW activities, research and reflection process, a conscious approach is employed to re-educate all stakeholders and participants involved on what it means to hold power, and what is required to give up power. A practice for establishing these new ways of doing is to ensure with resource provisions that this knowledge-sharing, reflective capacity-building can be done through dialogues and art-making activities, as a way of promoting a ‘safe space’ for dialogue and reflection.

PRINCIPLE 8: A COMMITMENT TO STRENGTHS-BASED AND TRAUMA-INFORMED WORK

Through our work, we want to avoid further marginalization and pathologizing of Indigenous young people’s experiences and concerns. Ways of assuring that we avoid these risks, is to take into consideration throughout the engagement processes, the needs, health, and well-being of the participants and stakeholders at all levels. Several key elements are highlighted as essential when interacting with participants in the communities for the MTW interventions:

- Consent-based, anti-oppressive, intergenerational processes/practices. This will enable space for ethical considerations and harm-reduction within: Physical, Mental, Spiritual, Emotional realms.

- That consideration is given to how to critically address how evaluative practices may not necessarily be appropriate to capturing data about the trauma itself, but focus on the healing component of the More Than Words interventions as a way of understanding the community changes taking place in response to the interventions, as art is healing itself.

- Time: It is important to have a regular schedule so that participants know that they can count on being with their peers and can plan for this in advance. In addition, we should make sure that we are allocating enough and equal time to each participant.

- Safety: Although we cannot guarantee safety, we can set up parameters to choose activities that promote or support the creation of a safe environment.

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- Continuity: If one of the goals of the project is to allow communities to create their own pathways then part of the continuity is enabling the participants to sustain support.

PRINCIPLE 9: RESPECTING AND VALUING INTERGENERATIONAL CULTURAL PRACTICES

More Than Words, will work to better understand and adopt communities’ ways of including and strengthening intergenerational relationships. to better understand what this means to supporting youth, and within cultural spaces of what intergenerationality means to each community and how its valued, respected and practiced. Traditional intergenerational relationship refers typically to a flow of knowledge and experience from Elders to youth, and the rest of the community. With youth at the centre of the MTW research and community interventions and a strong leadership building component to support youth mentors/aunties with the aim of supporting survivors of SGBV, their families and communities, the concept of intergenerational is being expanded within the framework of this project. There are several ways this is being highlighted as a potential emerging practice: a. Youth as producers of social artifacts (i.e., are producing art, or art-making tools for

education and awareness raising, knowledge-sharing and dialogue). Resulting possibilities of shifting the role of youth within communities might establish new notions of ‘intergenerationality’ within participating communities. For example, youth participating in the interventions are sharing knowledge and experience with adult members of their families and communities as well as, in some cases, formal higher level educational institutions (e.g., university class rooms)

b. Implementing teams are adults working with youth leadership frameworks. The MTW research and community intervention has to interrogate what it means to be an adult working within these framework and contexts. The notion of intergenerationality again is being repositioned where young people within the project will be leading decision-making and directions of the project. .

c. Youth as mentors/aunties (peer2peer). Given that Generation 1 youth (those that have been actively participating in the interventions for several years are being trained as mentors/aunties to a younger population of youth – Generation 2. Continuously throughout the mentorship training process and implementation of the pilot activities where Gen 1 youth will be co-facilitating interventions with Gen 2 youth critically reflexive practices will be employed to capture potentially emergent changes within community contexts.

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REFERENCES Art for Social Change in Canada. (n.d). Evaluation of Art For Social Change Projects.

http://www.ascevaluation.ca/course.aspx?type=step1#Evaluation Art for Social Change in Canada. (n.d). Monitoring and Evaluation in Art for Social Change.

http://www.ascevaluation.ca/ Blueprint Pathways. (2016). Blueprint Pathways Evaluation Report 2016.

https://icasc.ca/resource/blueprint-pathways-evaluation-report-2016/ CCP CCPA, (2018, March). Na-gah mo Waabishkizi Ojijaak Bimise Keetwaatino: Singing White

Crane Flying North: Gathering a Bundle for Indigenous Evaluation. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. https://www.mcgill.ca/morethanwords/files/morethanwords/na_gah_mo_waabishkizi_ojijaak_bimise_keetwaatino.pdf

Cooper, E., & Driedger, S. M. (2019). “If You Fall Down, You Get Back Up”: Creating a Space for Testimony and Witnessing by Urban Indigenous Women and Girls. International Indigenous Policy Journal, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.18584/iipj.2019.10.1.1

Cousins, J. B. (2019). Collaborative Approaches to Evaluation: Principles in Use (Evaluation in Practice Series 3). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications.

Joseph, B., & Joseph, C. (2019). Indigenous Relations: Insights, Tips & Suggestions to Make Reconciliation a Reality. Indigenous Relations Press. www.ictinc.ca.

Lam, S. (2018, June 21). Towards Indigenous-led and Culturally-responsive Evaluations. Sunao. https://sunao.ca/2018/06/21/towards-indigenous-co-created-culturally-responsive-and-sustainability-ready-evaluations/. Accessed August 12, 2019.

Leah, B., & Frost, J. (2010). Arts-Informed Evaluation: A Creative Approach to Assessing Community Arts Practices. Arts for Children and Youth Toronto, VIBE Arts. https://icasc.ca/resource/arts-informed-evaluation-a-creative-approach-to-assessing-community-arts-practices/

London, J. K., Zimmerman, K., & Erbstein, N. (2003). Youth-Led Research and Evaluation: Tools for Youth, Organizational, and Community Development. New Directions for Evaluation, 2003(98), 33–45. https://doi.org/10.1002/ev.83

Patton, M.Q. (2017) Principles-focused Evaluation: The GUIDE. New York, NY: Guilford Smylie, J., Martin, C. M., Kaplan-Myrth, N., Steele, L., Tait, C., & Hogg, W. (2004). Knowledge

Translation and Indigenous Knowledge. International Journal of Circumpolar Health, 63(sup2), 139–143. https://doi.org/10.3402/ijch.v63i0.17877

Smylie, J., Olding, M., & Ziegler, C. (2014). Sharing What We Know about Living a Good Life: Indigenous Approaches to Knowledge Translation. Journal of the Canadian Health Libraries Association, 35, 16-23. doi: 10.5596/c14-009

Yassi, A., Parent, S., Spiegel, J., Goldbard, A., et al. (2016). Re-framing the Evaluation Conundrum in a 5-year Multi-institutional Arts-for-social-change Partnership: A Multi-scalar, Context-specific, Theory-driven Approach. https://icasc.ca/resource/re-framing-the-evaluation-conundrum-in-a-5-year-multi-institutional-arts-for-social-change-partnership-a-multi-scalar-context-specific-theory-driven-approach/

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APPPENDIX A METHODS AND TOOLS FOR LOOKING BACK AND DETERMINING THE PATH AHEAD

Below are some examples of methods and tools that can be used in More Than Words intervention to assess how its foundational principles for designing and doing arts-based, Indigenous and youth-led initiatives align with the following:

- Were considered to add-value to understand SGBV and its root causes (relevance)

- Influenced the design and doing of new arts-based, Indigenous and youth-led initiatives

in communities to understand SGBV and its root causes. (effectiveness)

- Were shared across communities to encourage new learning, knowledge and practices to contribute to strengthening/producing changes at the community level. (impact)

- Contributed to strengthening/producing impact of changes at community level, within

community to understand SGBV and its root causes. (impact)

- Were adopted/integrated as ‘ways of doing’ and ‘ways of learning’ in communities to understand SGBV and its root causes. (Legacy)

The methods highlighted in the chart below are shared as useful options for the purpose of contributing to the developmental evaluation process of the More Than Words project. Most of these can be used to complement/or be integrated into arts-based approaches as ways of collecting data. Many ca be led by youth within Indigenous community contexts. Drawing on these methods will produce evidence of how More Than Words and the ‘Trail or Bundle have laid the groundwork for addressing SGBV in communities, and support the important reflective practices that can be adopted in community to gather information about the changes at the community level occurring as a result of the contributions made by initiatives of the More Than Words initiative. See also More Than Words website for a range of tools and methods for ‘looking back and determining the path ahead.

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Method Type: Description External (outside community)

Internal (within community)

Adaptive to Arts-based + illustrative examples

Most Significant Change (MSC)

Technique is a form of participatory evaluation. It is participatory because many stakeholders are involved both in deciding the sorts of change to be recorded and reflecting on meaning. It is a form of learning and reflection, can take place continuously and provides information that can improve the way things are being done and how they are achieved. It contributes to evaluation because it provides data on impact and outcomes that helps to illuminate the overall respect and integration of principles throughout initiatives at community level. Essentially, the process involves the collection of stories at community level. Can be youth-led, community-led. Stories reviewed for impact and also can be used as learning tools.

Contributes with high level sharing

Yes Yes (E.g., story-telling through: cellphilming, photovoice, film, writing, drawing)

Appreciative Inquiry

It is an approach to evaluation that surfaces the value of initiatives, as perceived by stakeholders, while also deepening an understanding of what gaps would exist in the absence of foundational principles being respected/integrated. Appreciative Inquiry is collaborative and participatory at its root, therefore is capable of generating important insights about how arts-based, Indigenous and youth-led initiatives can contribute to transforming a community context that strengthens the understanding of SGBV and its root causes. As indicated by the name of the approach, it is grounded in a positive perspective, allowing for a strengths-focused understanding of 1) what stakeholders and beneficiaries value most about the initiatives, 2) appreciate about how the Project Implementation Team, Youth Mentors (i.e. Aunties) and other adults central to the initiative interact with each other and the youth stakeholders and beneficiaries, in this case members of the community, youth, members of the MTW network Can be combined with other methods: document review, semi-structured interviews, Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), sense-making workshop(s), and a survey.

Yes yes Yes (E.g., story-telling through: cellphilming, photovoice, film, writing, drawing)

Impact Story Sharing

An impact story is a great method, similar to a case study, but it is more in-depth, as it looks to create a story that includes a description of how changes happened, within a specific context based on details related to how, what, why, where, who, and when an initiative took place. Often, other communication tools like for example, blogs, vlogs, and case studies are often the first step in the process of writing an impact story. Often these are then reviewed by a designated team (in this case the evaluation consultant, advisors, and project implementation team) to determine if it would be useful to share more details, sometimes including the roles of who was involved, unique attributes/characteristics, quotes or photographs

Yes yes Yes (E.g., story-telling through: cellphilming, photovoice, film, writing, drawing)

Sense-Making Workshop(s)

Sensemaking is a collaborative evaluation technique used to validate, organise and interpret research and field data. Data collected generally needs to be analysed and interpreted so it becomes useful to the users and to the community at large. Understanding how the principles are being respected or integrated requires the engagement of the participants in the initiatives and community members Collaborative sensemaking overcomes problems that might arise in the data around bias, equity, and intersectionality. In a sensemaking workshop data and interpretation of data is shared with different people where they are asked to validate or share their insights of the data that might not have been seen in what was shared. This is a great

Yes (e.g., visual methods, storytelling, writing, art-making

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way to include community members, share knowledge and offer opportunities for further reflection on the way the data is being seen. Will help to minimize ‘mistakes around interpretation’ or in analysis. Collaborative sensemaking gives the wider team (including users and stakeholders) an opportunity to see for themselves what was seen and heard, and reflect on what this means for the initiative and/or the community moving forward. It helps everyone on the team become part of the design decision-making process.

Discussion circles

Grounded in Indigenous practices of the ‘talking circle’, discussion circles can be valuable methods for reflection and learning focused on story-telling, that usually relies on a sacred object (i.e. talking stick) to support the discussion in group.

No Yes Yes (e.g., Storytelling, craft-making, etc)

Context Mapping

A highly participatory approach that is very useful when working in multiple contexts is useful in visualizing and demonstrating where the boundaries are between contexts involved in the initiative. It is helpful in establishing clarity about what the unique elements of each context is (i.e. communities), how they are complementing each other and how they are different, especially useful when relying on common resources. In particular when resources and teams are working in multiple contexts or with multiple groups, context mapping helps us to understand how various contexts or groups might perceive the one team or initiative. This would bring to light an understanding for instance of how Gen 1 and Gen 2 might perceive a similar initiative differently, and help us to understand why.

yes no Yes (e.g., visual methods, storytelling, writing, art-making, such as: graphic charting

Outcome Mapping (OM)

A highly participatory and dynamic method that showcases holistic and interconnected understanding about development and social change. In itself it is designed as a way of moving from conventional evaluation practices that are traditionally linear and project focused, towards a more fluid, organic, equitable process seeks to identify and understand behavioural change and relationships among actors across a system. In essence, OM strengthens participatory empowerment and collaboration processes where people, groups, organizations and networks embrace different perspectives and build their own collective well-being.

Yes yes Yes (e.g., visual methods, storytelling, writing, art-making) graphic charting

Semi-structured interviews

Is considered a rigorous method used for research purposes and can be adapted to apply to contexts involving a variety of stakeholders and integrated with several arts-based methods and participatory video. Relying on a clear interview protocol designed to suit the context and stakeholders, the semi-structured interview method is intended to collect data in a systematic way. Semi-structured interviews give some flexibility to the interviews and allows for more fluidity in the interview and less rigidity in the line of questioning, but still relying on a protocol to guide directions of conversations.

Yes yes Yes (e.g., film, writing)

Focus-group discussions (FGD)

Participatory technique used for gathering qualitative information, used in evaluation and research. FGDs are very useful to collect shared knowledge of participants, through the content of the discussion itself as well as through observation. They are really good for learning and reflecting on the processes and implementation of initiatives and can be used to gather information a broad range of views and perspectives from a wide range of stakeholders, in this case, youth, community elders, parents, teachers, social service providers, etc.

yes yes Yes (e.g., can use visual methods to track conversation, reflection activities

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They allow us to obtain quality, and detailed information about a relatively specific topic. The role of the researcher is as an observer, and needs strong skills of culturally responsive communication and practices, and is able to understand and explore the nuances of meaning and to pick up on non-verbal message.

Network Dialogue Gatherings Survey

Conducting surveys have become very popular in data collection processes. Online surveys require less resources, are not bound by time and place, and is a suitable method that enables the collection of a large amount of data that is asynchronous. Online surveys can be conducted either through the creation of an online survey platform, or via email. Face-to-face surveys in hard-copy (or print) require that the distribution and collection of the survey been done on site and then transcribed or fully analyze manually. Both are useful forms of collecting quantitative and qualitative data.

Yes No No

Observation Conventional approach to research and data collection, that can also be approached as a ‘light touch’ way of documenting data and evidence for understanding the way principles are respected and integrated into the community initiatives.

Yes yes no

Literature and textual review

Reviewing literature, documents, web-based materials, tools, and visual content to learn, improve, adapt, and establish a contextual knowledge and understanding of the initiative. This is an ongoing process method

yes no No (can rely on art-produced data)

Additional resources

Youth-led https://youthrex.com/qualitative-tools/ Most significant change: https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/316071/Resources/Tools/Most%20Significant%20Change%20Tool_Final.pdf Variety of arts-based activities that can be adapted to integrate the methods mentioned above or an illustrative direction setting for conversation and reflection. According to Cooper and Dreidger (2019: p. 6) “Activities included non-competitive and improvisation games (e.g., telephone), walks around the neighbourhood, crafts, and shared meals. A combination of qualitative elicitation methods were used. These included arts-based methods, such as drawing pictures, creating sculptures, and creating jewellery; Indigenous methods including discussion circles and storytelling; sports-based methods like playing group games, scavenger hunts, and games based on the medicine wheel; and participatory action data collection, which included transect walks and ranking activities.”

yes Yes

SUGGESTED METHOD APPLICATION TO ASSESS EACH PRINCIPLE

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9: R

esp

ecti

ng

an

d v

alu

ing

inte

rge

ner

atio

nal

cu

ltu

ral p

ract

ices

Most Significant Change (MSC)

x x x x

x

Appreciative Inquiry x x

x x x

Impact Story Sharing x x x x x

x

Sense-Making Workshop(s)

x x x

x

x x x

Discussion circles

x x x x x x

Context Mapping

x

x

x

Outcome Mapping (OM)

x x

Semi-structured interviews

x x x

x x

x

Focus-group discussions (FGD)

x x x x x

Network Dialogue Gatherings Survey

x

Observation

x

x x

Literature and textual review

x

x

x

Additional resources x x x x x x x x