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People typically seek treatment for addiction only when faced with a major crisis. Understanding the trajectory of substance use and treatment seeking may assist in identifying points for intervention. In this study I explored the use of visual methods with in-depth interviews to represent people's substance use, critical events, and treatment pathways. Ethics approval was granted with the condition that only aggregate findings would be presented, although occasional quotes could be used for illustration. Typical timelines were developed, along with text vignettes describing hypothetical participants whose experience matched that shown in these timelines. Benefits of the timelines include the combination of aural and visual data, along with the concise and holistic form of presentation. However, the use of typical timelines and hypothetical vignettes meant a loss of the richness found in individual portrayals of experience. Alternative approaches, such as the use of individual and summary timelines with text illustrations would preserve the conciseness of representation while enabling the voice of the participant to be heard.

While ethical concerns are a central issue in evaluation, few evaluators have formal training in this area and consensus has not been reached about what evaluators seek in regard to ethics. In this article, different approaches to ethical review are described, drawing from: existing research on how evaluators currently deal with these concerns; the formal process put forward by Australia's National Health and Medical Research Council, and theoretical models of decision-making. Findings from a regional forum on ethics and evaluation, which was held in Melbourne in 2006, are also reported. The Australasian Evaluation Society should continue to promote discussion on ethics to further the knowledge and skills of evaluators and the AES may also have a role in educating human research ethics committees, to increase their capacity to respond appropriately to evaluation proposals.

Many people in alcohol and other drug treatment are clients of other services, however there is limited consideration of the combinations and sequences of services and systems that they use. We used data visualization to analyze and re-present findings from a large research project on clients' service use and referral sources in the year preceding alcohol treatment entry. Data were from 16 "high-end" service users with alcohol problems and analysis involved constructing individual text and timeline summaries and a visual encoding system to show service type and referral source. Three distinct service use pathways were identified and a visual model of alcohol treatment, other service use and continuity in treatment was constructed. Timelining was a useful means of developing a creative and illuminating perspective during analysis. Although there is a risk of over-simplification, data visualization appears useful for focusing on and communicating the diversity of people's service use pathways.

The historical and current status of Indigenous people needs careful consideration in designing evaluations of Indigenous-specific programs. In Australia, the evaluator operates in a context arising from past policies of discrimination against Indigenous people and limited current policy moves toward community control and self-determination. Evaluation guidelines and standards exist to provide direction and become particularly valuable in complex project conditions, such as the current evaluation. This paper reflects on guidelines of the Australasian Evaluation Society and standards of the American Evaluation Association (AEA) as they apply to the evaluation of Indigenous programs in Victoria, focusing on our recent experience in the evaluation of Indigenous specific alcohol and drug programs. Particular attention is given to the utility standards of the AEA, given the range of key stakeholders involved in the evaluation. We discuss the consistency of our approach with the utility standards and suggest areas where modification to the standards may be useful, drawing particularly on the modifications to the standards that have been put forward by the African Evaluation Association. In reflecting on the evaluation, we also identify areas for change in future projects involving Indigenous programs.

Collaborative governance involves processes and structures for policy development and decision making with particular relevance for health and social services. We examined collaborative governance in the reform of Western Australia's alcohol and other drug sector, applying Emerson et al.'s (2012) integrative framework. A documentary review and group interviews with government, sector, and consumer representatives were involved. Contextual factors included increased service funding, and the development of a partnership approach. Drivers for collaboration involved leadership and financial incentives for policy implementation. Key stakeholders across government and the sector reported a mutually supportive and constructive relationship and increased capacity, and they shared an agenda for change. The integrative framework was a useful structure for the explication of collaborative governance, although financial arrangements were not addressed.

The purpose of this paper is to show how "realist synthesis" methodology (Pawson, 2002) was adapted to review a large sample of community based projects addressing alcohol and drug use problems. Our study drew on a highly varied sample of 127 projects receiving funding from a national non-government organisation in Australia between 2002 and 2008. Open and pattern coding led to the identification of 10 barrier and nine enabler mechanisms influencing project implementation across the sample. Eight case studies (four demonstrating successful implementation; four demonstrating less than successful implementation) were used for depth exploration of these mechanisms. High level theories were developed, from these findings, on implementation effectiveness in projects addressing alcohol and other drug use problems.