Culturally responsive evaluation (CRE) is a potent tool in achieving social justice. Despite its potential, the application of CRE is lacking. This paucity is partly due to a lack of knowledge about CRE and how to apply it in everyday evaluation. This presentation will delineate CRE, including its definition, dimensions, and applications. It will include examples and exercises for the audience to begin conceptualizing CRE and how to integrate it into their work. This session will be led by co-presenters Drs. Neubauer and McBride.

Leah Christina Neubauer, MA, EdD: Dr. Leah Christina Neubauer has been working in the field of public health as an educator, trainer, evaluator, and researcher for the last fourteen years. Her practice has focused on HIV/AIDS, program evaluation, women’s health, and adult education teaching/practice. Dr. Neubauer collaborates with many global (Kenya-based), national, state and local partners on a variety of evaluation and education endeavors.  She has delivered numerous presentations and co-authored publications on global public health, community-based consultation, and on Latino-oriented culturally-responsive evaluation. Her research is currently focused on cultural humility and the use of critical self reflection in health and evaluation professions. Currently, Dr. Neubauer is the Program Manager and Instructor in DePaul University’s MPH program.

Dominica McBride, PhD: Dr. Dominica McBride has conducted domestic and international program development and evaluation projects with underserved communities, including rural communities in Tanzania, East Africa, African American communities, Hispanic communities, urban Native American communities, and women. She has led various multicultural projects, infusing cultural responsiveness into her work, with focus on community involvement and participatory approaches. She has published articles and chapters on culturally responsive evaluation, cultural competence, and prevention. Currently, Dr. McBride is the Founder and CEO of Become, Inc. 

Qualitative Analytical Methods

This session will discuss mixed methodology research designs and how they can be been used in applied and academic research. It will examine the basic approaches of qualitative and quantitative analysis, types of mixed method research designs, appropriateness, and steps in conducting a mixed methods research study. It use examples of recent research the presenter has conducted with the use of mixed methods research designs to explore issues of inequality, poverty, and civic integration.  This research included the use of census and survey data analysis, graphical information system (GIS), collection of focus group data, in depth one-on-one thematic interviews, oral life histories, and archival research. 

Armando Ibarra, PhD: Armando Ibarra is an assistant professor with the School for Workers and a faculty affiliate with the Chicano and Latino Studies program at the University of Wisconsin-Extension/Madison. He received a PhD in political science from the University of California, Irvine and has extensive and diverse research and teaching experience. His research interests include the study of international labor migration, Latino community development and incorporation, and organized labor in the U.S. He is uniquely positioned to engage in traditional university and broad based community research and teaching. His written works include a book on scholar activist Ernesto Galarza, The Rubber Stamp Process: Broken Governance in Planning and Development, and How Communities Can Regain a Voice, Working but Poor in Milwaukee: Life Stories, and South Madison: Community Development and Needs. On the documentary, Harvest of Loneliness: The Bracero Program, he was as a researcher and photographer and he was the associate producer of A Legacy of Excellence: 100 Years of Wisconsin Apprenticeship.

Statistics for Information Consumers: The Basics

What are inferential statistics and how are they employed in evaluation? This session will introduce key concepts like distributions, statistical significance and levels of data, and how your data should determine what tests, if any, are appropriate and what they mean. The goal of this course is to demystify basic inferential statistics and start down the road to using them in quantitative evaluations. 

Gregory Powers: Gregory earned a BA in Liberal Arts from Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville New York, and an M.Sc. in Psychodynamic Developmental Neuroscience from a joint program between the University College of London’s Anna Freud Centre and the Yale Child Study Center. He is currently a Social Work Ph.D. candidate at the Helen Bader School of Social Welfare, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Gregory started his evaluation career with the WINDOW Replication Project, a study that examined the reentry needs of Baltimore City Jail inmates. Currently he is working on an ongoing evaluation of Milwaukee County’s drug treatment court. His interests include drug treatment and drug law reform, incarceration policy, and the developmental effects of poverty.   

Action Planning Sessions

There will be three action planning workshops. All action planning sessions are open to all conference participants.

Open Places Milwaukee: New Research to Inform the Social Justice Field

New research commissioned by Open Places Milwaukee provides new data that paints a picture of the systematic economic and criminal justice disparities that impact people of color and low-income Milwaukeeans. In this session, participants will discuss how research can be used to build capacity at the grass-tops and grassroots levels over the long-term, and explore how meaningful networks from the ivory tower to the community can use research to have collective impact to advance our values.

Milwaukee Latino Health Coalition Session

The Milwaukee Latino Health Coalition (MLHC) is a group of professionals and community leaders that work together to promote the health and wellbeing of Latino communities by organizing power for social change. The coalition is guided by a formal steering committee and initiatives are carried out through the work of Action Teams. This session will provide an overview of the coalition’s efforts to establish a pipeline for Spanish-speaking and Latino health professionals in Milwaukee. The session will focus on the initiatives of the coalition’s Latino Research Action Team.

Dina Garcia: Dina Garcia is a student in the Public and Community Health program at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW). She received her MPH in Epidemiology from Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and her B.S. in Bacteriology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dina joined the Milwaukee Latino Health Coalition (MLHC) as a Steering Committee member in November 2011 and she currently spearheads the coalition’s Latino Research Action Team. Prior to joining the MLHC, she worked as the Border Infectious Disease Surveillance (BIDS) Epidemiologist for the Texas Department of State Health Services where she established an enhanced sentinel surveillance system on enteric diseases along the US/MX border. Through her wide-ranging work, she has gained experience in applied epidemiology, data managing and analysis, disease surveillance, emergency disaster management, outbreak investigations, and survey development. Her research interests include health disparities, self-management of diabetes mellitus, oral health, as well as social, cultural and environmental determinants of health.

¡Milwaukee Evaluation! Pipeline Initiative

¡Milwaukee Evaluation!, inspired by the AEA theme of values and valuing, was created with a deep commitment to the advancement of evaluators of color and other underrepresented group; this is a core tenet of our mission. We believe that all too often this sentiment is expressed but not made intentional in practice or in policy undefined and thereby can never be fully realized. ¡Milwaukee Evaluation! believes we can change the field by engaging all of you in the change process. This session will outline practices and policies that will advance this work and it will engage you, as evaluators in our community, in creating meaningful strategic goals for ¡Milwaukee Evaluation! to work towards in the next year.