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The use of multi-agency partnerships, including research-practice partnerships, to facilitate the development, implementation and evaluation of public health interventions has expanded in recent years. However, gaps remain in the understanding of influences on partnership working, and their capacity to facilitate and use evaluation, as well as the characteristics which lead to partnership effectiveness. We applied qualitative methods to explore experiences of stakeholders who were involved in partnerships to deliver and evaluate a national physical activity programme. We combined thematic and network analysis, and drew on concepts of evaluation use, knowledge exchange and organisational systems to interpret our findings and develop a conceptual model of the relationships between partnership characteristics and processes. Our model identifies key partnership characteristics such as high levels of engagement, regular communication and continuity. Furthermore, it highlights the importance of implementing organisational structures and systems to support effective partnership working, knowledge exchange and capacity building.

This article proposes a theoretical framework and a grid to unify models and to describe programme evaluation. It identifies three components in the evaluation process: the information-collecting process; the value-judgement product; and the use of the latter in decision making. It defines three differentiation axes (or dimensions): the social enunciation, the external or internal position of actors, and the formal or informal character of the evaluation components. The relevance for the practitioner and the researcher is discussed and briefly illustrated with two examples from the health promotion sector: a project selection process and a retrospective study of programme-evaluation practices.

This brief article seeks to answer, with examples, some of the more common questions that policy‐makers and practitioners in children's services often ask about randomised controlled trials (RCTs). It is essentially a primer, and those wishing to read further on these issues might find it helpful to start with the books discussed in the review article by Hobbs and colleagues in this special edition (p40).

Abstract Background: Complexity received increasing attention from researchers in integration and evaluation studies. Complex adaptive systems (CAS) are the most prominent formulation of complexity used in programme evaluations. However, there remain significant theoretical and conceptual barriers to using complexity as an explanatory model in social sciences, and thus in applying it successfully in integration and evaluation studies. Method: Discussion paper outlining the potential uses and risks of complexity theory for studying integration programmes in health and social care and programme evaluations in general. The paper proceeds by synthesising the work of various critics and proponents of complexity theory in the social sciences and evaluation theory. Results: Complexity offers opportunities and risks to social scientists working in programme evaluations and integration studies. The opportunities are defined by additional modelling and verification/falsification of possible cause and effect links in programme settings. The risks, on the other hand, are twofold. Social scientists may use complexity as a shorthand for as yet insufficient understanding of the contexts under examination, or they mistake it for an explanatory device without testing its potential to explain. The second risk emerges as a result of the nature of complexity and its role in natural sciences. Assigning complexity an explanatory role may prevent further investigation of a given setting that may reveal that complexity is insufficient to understand what is going on. Implications for practice: Researchers should make clear how they have operationalised and measured the various features of the complexity model to allow robust verification of the evidence. Scholars should also assume that complexity as defined by the natural sciences is philosophically and epistemologically problematic when transferred into the realm of social sciences that largely operate with concepts informed by the paradigm of understanding social behaviour.

Whilst teenage contraception rates have reduced in England over the last 25 years, this reduction has been less pronounced in County Durham, which has higher teenage conception rates that both the North East, and England averages. The psycho-social impacts on teenage parents are significant, with high levels of parental stress, higher risk of developing mental health problems, and poorer physical health outcomes when compared to non-teenage parents. Furthermore, teenage parenthood is also often associated with social exclusion and deprivation, with many teenage parents coming from disadvantaged backgrounds. A number of government backed policies have been developed to promote social inclusion amongst teenage parents aimed at increasing participation in education and employment.

Modern governments must increase their capacity for analysing and evaluating public programmes. Evaluations, however, take place in a political context and many policies have unstated political goals. Sweden appears to have a highly developed evaluation and effectiveness auditing system and the Swedish case is instructive, not only because of its experience in the evaluation field, but also because it illustrates the changing policy style. Two main agencies are involved in the evaluation process and they both experience some difficulties in their evaluation studies. These difficulties stem in part from the political environment in which they both operate but also relate to their own organisational styles. The resource squeeze could bring broad environmental charges which could be conducive to a greater influence for the two agencies.

AbstractFunds to developing countries for HIV/AIDS programmes have noticeably increased. For civil society organisations (CSOs), one challenge of project implementation is the difficulty in assessing their interventions. A qualitative study was conducted in Malaysia and the Philippines with CSOs to identify the obstacles to HIV project evaluation. Twenty‐five bodies—CSOs, donors, governments and the United Nations—in both countries were interviewed. The findings show that despite contrasting political and socio‐economic contexts, both countries' CSOs share similar impediments to evaluation, including the lack of evaluation expertise, inadequate resources, onerous reporting obligations and constraints in evaluating interventions with marginalised groups. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Despite the potential advantages of a closer link between planning evaluation and programme evaluation , both fields have been developed independently. This is mainly due to significant differences between them, particularly in terms of historical background, evaluation scope and contexts, the articulation between theory and practice, and the timings of evaluation. This article advocates bridging the gap between these two fields, and presents the Plan-Process-Results (PPR) methodology as an example of, and a contribution to, this bridging process. PPR is a methodology for evaluating planning and plan implementation, integrating elements from three types of planning evaluation, based on rationality ex-ante, performance and conformance.