Evaluation is important in demonstrating the effectiveness of your surf therapy program and contributes towards sustainability, funders love a good evaluation report! This page exists to help you take your program to the next level through offering a step by step guide to basic evaluation for surf therapy practitioners, you DO NOT need to be a professional researcher to follow this framework. If you wish to conduct more complex evaluation or research, we suggest trying to find a student or academic to support you as the additional steps required are not always best use of an organization’s time, especially at the start up stage. Finally, one golden rule to remember is that evaluation exists to support your organization, and not the other way around. A perfectly designed evaluation from a methodological standpoint is of no use if it impacts negatively upon your service delivery. There are 7 sections within this framework to help you through conducting a basic evaluation.

1. The Wave Project Scotland 2014, a case study. What does a good evaluation look like?
2. Ethics; how do you conduct safe and responsible evaluation?
3. Demographics; Who is coming to your program?
4. Attendance; How much surf therapy are participants receiving?
5. Quantitative Data; How much has surf therapy impacted participants?
6. Qualitative Data; In what way has surf therapy impacted participants?
7. Putting it all together; How do you write your evaluation report?

The Wave Project Scotland 2014, a case study. What does a good evaluation look like?  We thought we would start at the end! Thank you to the Wave Project (www.waveproject.co.uk) for allowing us to highlight their effective use of an evaluation report in successfully developing their service delivery in Scotland. The aim of this is to give you a real-world example of firstly what a good evaluation report looks like and secondly how it can be utilised to develop your program. One thing to note, no researchers were involved in the creation of this report, it was all done through the program staff. To put the report into context, this was an evaluation of the Wave Project pilot in Scotland working with 20 local young people. The report itself was integral in securing significant grant funding enabling a full-time coordinator post where the pilot had been run on a voluntary basis. This in turn enabled the pilot to develop into a much bigger service working with 100 young people a year that is still changing lives in Scotland today. Have a read of the Wave Project Scotland Pilot Evaluation Report here.   Now you have seen an example of a successful evaluation let’s break it down into the different things you need to do in order to publish something similar.

Ethics; how do you conduct safe and responsible evaluation? This is the most important part of evaluation and research, and if done poorly can negatively impact on your service delivery. Professional research conducted through an academic institution or research institute goes through extensive ethical screening through an ethical review board. This is not necessarily possible or appropriate for your organization conducting a basic evaluation, however, there are some very important considerations listed below. Informed Consent; you will have had to  get consent for participants to take part in your program and the exact same principle exists with regards to evaluation. When collecting your data, you must include a simple explanation of what you are collecting and how it will be used. This can be done effectively in a few lines but this informed consent is mandatory for any kind of data collection. Remember for children this consent must be signed for by the children’s guardians. You can read an example of this below.  Thank you to the Jimmy Miller Memorial Foundation (www.jimmymillerfoundation.org)  for providing this example from one of their data collection tools.  Anonymity; from an ethical standpoint it is always recommended to anonymise participant data within any publicly shared evaluation report to protect their identity and personal wellbeing. It also helps participants to feel at ease participating in the first place. To anonymise you can remove all names, use pseudonyms or numbers. For data provided by other sources such as teachers, doctors or social workers you do not have to anonymise as long as said people have given their permission. Their titles can add weight to the data they share. Examples of this can be seen in the Wave Project Evaluation shared at the start of the framework.  We would always recommend where possible getting someone independent to review your procedures from an ethics standpoint. ISTO includes a range of people who could undertake this role for your organization.

Demographics; Who is coming to your program? Demographics are an important basic measure to explore when evaluating your surf therapy program. Demographics allow us to understand who our service is reaching, something as simple as the age can be important for funders who want to fund a particular age bracket. By presenting these within your evaluation you can offer more information to funders and partner organizations about the service that you offer. Demographics can also be very useful for reflection on your service delivery. For example, recording gender could highlight a gender skew in participation due to unexpected barriers. Without recording these demographics such barriers may not have come to light. Below is a by no means exhaustive table of potential participant demographics you could record. Think about which ones are most relevant to your program, it is not necessary to use them all if some are not relevant