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Do empowerment programs really work?

lowitja.org.au


Empowerment programs are designed to empower individuals and communties to take action for themselves instead of being dependent upon someone else or other organisations. But do they work?

The impact of empowerment programs has not been quantified before in research studies. However Irina Kinchin and Susan Jacups, at the James Cook University in Australia, assessed the Family Wellbeing program (FWB), which is an Indigenous-developed empowerment program. Their study measured community interventions as well as the value of measurement tools for future impact evaluations (BioMed Central, August 21, 2015).

FWB was a three-day workshop designed to promote empowerment and workplace engagement among child protection staff, held across five remote north Queensland  communities in Australia. The FWB assessment tool was a set of surveys including the Growth Empowerment Measure (GEM), the Australian Unity Wellbeing Index (AUW Index), the Kessler psychological distress scale (K10), and a workforce engagement survey. These surveys to measure the workshop’s effectiveness were conducted before the workshop and three months after the workshop.

The results showed that the GEM assessment tool appeared to be the most tangible measure for detecting changes in communication, conflict resolution, decision making, and life skills development – in terms of positive and negative changes. The GEM indicated a 17% positive change compared to 9% positive change using the AUW Index, a 5% positive change using the workforce engagement survey, and less than 1% positive change using K10.

The assessment of the empowerment program therefore depends on the measurement instrument – in other words, the type of survey used. The GEM survey was found to be the most sensitive in measuring tangible outcomes and results. The researchers recommend the GEM and the AUW Index as routine measures for empowerment programs, particularly among similar remote area interventions.

BioMed Central, BMC Psychology 2015, 3:29 doi: 10.1186/s40359-015-0086-z.


http://www.biomedcentral.com
http://www.lowitja.org.au/family-wellbeing-program-empowerment-research


 

 

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MARTINA NICOLLS  is an international human rights-based consultant in education, healing and wellbeing, peace and stabilization, foreign aid audits and evaluations, and the author  of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce  (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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