Survivor-centered and
Trauma-informed Approach
to Evaluation on Campus

A survivor-centered and trauma-informed approach is increasingly being recognized as essential in evaluating strategies addressing sexual violence and rape culture. Valuing and respecting survivors and acknowledging trauma is at the heart of this approach. The sensitivity and values that underpin the way in which this work is conducted directly impacts both the lives of participants and the effectiveness of the evaluation.

A survivor-centered and trauma-informed approach to evaluation values and respects survivors, while working to acknowledge trauma with the sensitivity needed to provide effective evaluation. It is based in an understanding of trauma and “seeks to empower the survivor by prioritizing [their] rights, needs, and wishes.”

Doing evaluation with a survivor-centered and trauma-informed approach can provide examples of how strategy and policy should be informed by the perspectives and insights of people with lived experience, as well as those who may be most impacted by sexual violence strategies and policy. In addition to increasing the chances of the evaluation being relevant, this approach provides a more ethical and empathetic methodology, which may contribute to broader cultural shifts within the community. There is no downside to a trauma-informed evaluation.

1. Examining the informal strategy structures that (re)produce inequalities

  • What practices, policies or activities are embedded in this strategy that might be inadvertently reinforcing gender, race, and class inequality?
  • Are you thinking about collecting data that will assess how the strategy is received by marginalized participants to determine if some groups (e.g., able bodied cisgender white middle-class women) are benefiting from the program more than other participants?
  • If your sexual violence strategy uses popular culture examples to demonstrate points are you being sure to highlight the way that gendered and racialized folks are portrayed in the examples? (e.g., these often cut to the heart of rape myths as well as other myths underpinning gender-based sexual violence)

2. Be intentional about what kind of knowledge is produced

  • Begin by asking yourself who knows about gender-based sexual violence? Was this strategy developed in conversation with these people?
  • Ask yourself: what do I know about sexual violence and how am I positioning myself as an evaluator?
  • Am I remaining attentive to the fact that knowledge produced through this strategy and the evaluation data being collected is contextual? (e.g., I cannot understand the responses I am getting as being universal; the results may be different in every context and for every person)
  • Are you remaining constantly attentive to the potential risks for participants and placing their well-being at the top of your priority list?
  • Is Knowledge being created about sexual violence co-created with the communities and individuals that have this knowledge? Is the foremost goal that the knowledge produced by the program and evaluation benefits survivors and the broader community? (see Survivor-centered and Trauma-informed Approaches to Evaluation)
  • Are you being attentive to the fact that some forms of knowing are privileged over others? (e.g., be sure that you are building in alternative knowledge and that it is given equal weight to standard methods of evaluation such as questionnaires and surveys)

3. Recognizing that evaluation is a political activity

  • Are you putting aside some time to think through context(s), personal perspective(s), and characteristics that you and your team are bringing to the evaluation process?
  • Are you being conscious of avoiding the “scientific” approach to evaluation that assumes an objective, unbiased stance? (e.g., rejecting the assumption that an evaluator must (or can) be apolitical and neutral (Sielbeck-Bowen et al., 2002)
  • Have you thought through the potential uses your evaluation data could be put to? (e.g., remain attentive to the fact that feminist evaluation data may be co-opted to the detriment of those the feminist evaluator is intending to serve)