Preventing Violence against Women and Girls through Male Engagement: Exploring a National Evaluation Framework

From The National Community of Practice (NCoP) and White Ribbon Canada, this national evaluation framework (NEF) is created "to provide guidance for organizations seeking to clarify intended impacts and outcomes resulting from gender-based violence prevention programming. It offers sample indicators across four levels of change and eight outcome areas, which can inform male engagement programming to respond and prevent violence against women and girls."

The main objectives of the NEF are the following:

• "To collate program results across the nine partner organizations
• To populate the national evaluation framework with project partners' evaluation results
• To find shared results across the programs
• To use the findings to create an impact and promising practices report specific to engaging men and boys for gender-based violence prevention
• To use the findings to develop a 'made-in-Canada' online toolkit for engaging men and boys." (To read summaries of the process of creating the NEF and more about its content, see Related Summaries below.)

Potential users of the NEF are the NCoP members and White Ribbon Canada, Status of Women Canada - part of the Canadian Ministry responsible for the status of women, the gender-based violence prevention sector, and international development programmes.

Enabling factors for programme effectiveness include programme approaches such as: youth-friendly approaches and creative methodology; and systematic and thoughtful planning together with women's organisations. Assessing community readiness and adopting "intersectionality throughout the engagement process and program (partnership scoping, programming content etc., evaluation etc.)" are enabling strategies as well. Communication-based strategies are: including male-friendly, strength-based, and positive messaging; fostering fun and safe spaces; and effectively using social media. Enabling community attitudes include a strong volunteer presence and commitment from men and boys.

Challenges, falling into three categories, include:

1. programming challenges such as choosing the gender of facilitators and adapting both spoken and written programme materials to local languages and dialects;
2. community attitude challenges, for example, with increasing media attention on GBV (gender-based violence), an organisational awareness is needed that men's power groups and anti-feminist thinking will also gain exposure; and
3. community setting challenges, among others, can include resource scarcity among women's groups in carrying out GBV prevention programming.

The document includes a list of readiness factors among organisations, collaborators, men and boys, and communities. It then explores key sustainability factors, such as adding resources, supporting scaling up, fostering diversity and trust among partners, building organisational capacity and long-term commitment, developing community/government collaboration, and pinpointing men's networks' commitments to primary prevention, to resource sharing with women's networks, and to accountability and "authentic collaboration".

NCoP members creating the NEF are: Alberta Council for Women’s Shelters (ACWS), Broadway Neighbourhood Centre, Centre d’accueil et d’accompagnement francophone des immigrants du Sud-Est du Nouveau-Brunswick (CAFI), Changing Ways, Chrysalis House Association, Les EssentiElles, Nova Vita Domestic Violence Prevention Services, Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada, and Students Commission of Canada.