Bridging classroom with community

By Danica Hidalgo Cherewyk

The University of Manitoba welcomed learners to the 2026 Summer Institute in Program Evaluation, held June 8 to 11 on the Fort Garry campus.

The week-long course is offered through the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences’ College of Community and Global Health (CCGH) in partnership with the Faculty of Social Work. It brings together undergraduate and graduate students from UM, along with participants from health and social organizations across the non-profit, government and private sectors.

“Program evaluation looks at what a program is achieving or not achieving — but not in the sense of being critical,” said Dr. Javier Mignone, a professor in CCGH and co-lead of the program. “It looks at ways organizations can adjust programs to improve their offerings.”

Dr. Ashley Stewart-Tufescu, assistant professor in the Faculty of Social Work, co-led this year’s Summer Institute.  

“Program evaluation is critical to social work,” she said. “It’s a core component of what social workers are expected to do. Oftentimes, funding is dependent on showing a program has an impact on the community it serves.”

Inside the Summer Institute

Participants learned about Indigenous and Western approaches to evaluation through lectures, case studies and group work.  

The institute is offered through CCGH’s undergraduate program, Introduction to the Evaluation of Programs for Children and Families (FMLY 3790), and through CCGH’s and the Faculty of Social Work’s graduate programs, Evaluation of Family, Health & Social Development Programs (CHSC 7632 and SWRK 7230).

It is delivered by a transdisciplinary team comprised of UM faculty and evaluation experts from First Nations Health and Social Secretariat of Manitoba, the Canadian Evaluation Society (Manitoba Chapter), United Way Winnipeg, Kaplan Research Associates and UM’s Centre for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning.  

Over the 16 years the course has run intermittently, Mignone said community learners have participated from approximately 100 organizations.

This year, five organizations brought programs forward for evaluation: St. Amant, Mood Disorders Association of Manitoba, Pinaymootang Health Centre, Shared Health and UM’s Community Partnerships – Indigenous Engagement and Communications.

Fifteen external learners participated, alongside 17 UM students earning course credits.

Mignone said the program’s impact extends across many organizations. One example he shared was how the course helped shape St. Amant’s evaluation work when they first attended in 2020.  

“They created an evaluation unit after participating in the institute,” he said. “They saw the need and value and changed the way they think.” 

Learning from the community side

Alannah Woodhouse works on the maternal child health program at Pinaymootang Health Centre and is one of the community participants.  

“This is all new for me,” she said. “Seeing how evaluations happen — the steps to take and the goal orientation — has been very helpful.”

Woodhouse said the program she works on is broad, serving families from Pinaymootang First Nation and surrounding communities with children from newborn to aged six. It also includes teen health education.

Four years into the program, she said they are looking to better define their main focus.

“We're servicing the whole family — mental, physical and spiritual health,” she said. “We look at them holistically as a family unit. We build a community around them that offers the support they need.”

From theory to practice

Suzanne Robertson, a PhD student in CCGH whose research focuses on racism and discourses in health care, said program evaluation is a natural fit for her work.

“I've worked in social services and community programing for a long time,” she said. “Now being in academia, it’s interesting to see the theory and all the pieces that go into planning an evaluation.

“For students, learning program evaluation bridges the gap between academia and the realities of community and the operational functioning of programs.”

Robertson said the course gave her an opportunity to apply theory in real-life situations.

“Community work is nothing like academia — it's completely night and day,” she said. “What I learned in the classroom gave me foundational tools, but in community work, there's a real vulnerability and expectation of continuous learning to meet the needs of our community members where they are at.”

For Cheryl Dow, a master’s student in the Faculty of Social Work who has developed programing in the non-profit sector, having community participants involved was especially valuable.

“They bring expertise from the programs we're evaluating,” she said.

“Understanding how evaluation works — how you measure success and ensure a program is effective — is so much easier when you're working with community members who are on the front lines and experiencing them firsthand.”