Here is what you can gain from a program evaluation, whether your program is newly launched or several years old:

• It can identify new ways for you to talk about your program's impact with funders and supporters. An effective program evaluation will look at your metrics. Often, we confuse "outputs" with "outcomes." For example, an organization might state, "We served fresh produce to 100 people," which is an output or an activity; however, a supporter will respond far more to you talking about your outcomes, i.e.: "As a direct result of our fresh produce program, 100 clients accessed nutritional foods that they could not access in their neighborhoods, 75% learned something new about healthy eating, and 80% stated they were saving money by cooking at home with these ingredients." It can be a struggle to identify what, exactly, successful outcomes look like, but an evaluation can help you pinpoint them and strategize how to better measure them.
• It can offer fresh perspective on how to do things. Maybe there is an easier or less expensive way to implement your program. Maybe there are technological solutions to your capacity challenges or service backlog. Maybe there are smoother ways to measure your success. You won't know until you engage in a dialogue about it.
• It can help you identify opportunities for growth. Everything looks different up close versus 10,000 feet up. If you are planning to grow your impact, an evaluation from an outside consultant can shed light on your infrastructural capacity to scale your growth appropriately.
• It can help identify unexpected areas of impact as well as unintended consequences. Sometimes we set out to accomplish A & B but end up solving X. Just the same, sometimes there are unintended negative consequences to programs, and sometimes there are delightfully unexpected outcomes. I'll give two examples -- The accidental discovery of penicillin saved millions of lives, even though it was not what the initial study set out to discover (had a contaminated petri dish simply been thrown away, our world would be very different!).  Sometimes we are so focused on one outcome that we lose our imagination around "what could be." My second example relates to unintended consequences: over the past twenty years, there has been a movement to install clean cookstoves in India to improve health outcomes for low-income households and address climate change, but after millions of dollars in "clean stove" donations and several years of campaigning, it was found no impact had been made and in some areas health outcomes actually worsened. A full review of your program can illuminate positive trends that you might not be seeing, as well as critical areas that might need to be addressed.

TJS offers program evaluations for a flat fee. Evaluations include:

• Stakeholder and staff engagement
• SWOT Analysis of program design and implementation
• Analysis of program metrics, with recommendations
• Conduct up to 3 focus groups with clients and/or staff
• Comprehensive final report with strategic recommendations

Reach out to Katherine Russell at katherine@transformthework.com.

I used to work in employment services helping formerly incarcerated individuals secure second chance opportunities and build their careers from scratch. A client came in one day distraught. My colleague and I had worked with her to shore up her resume as a head chef. After several years incarcerated, she wanted to return to the restaurant industry. We connected her with multiple interviews with second chance employers, and she was offered a head chef position with a great salary. However, when she presented this to her supervision officer, they told her she could not take the position, as it was in a restaurant where alcohol would be present. Her charge had nothing to do with alcohol use and she did not have a substance use history; in other words, there was no nexus between her charge and this decision by her supervision. It was punitiveness for the sake of punitiveness.

This is what reform advocates witness often, and it is not unusual to absorb the grief or outrage alongside our clients. When we see a success story get snuffed out because of injustice, we ourselves may start to burn out. We either need a superb supervisor (which I luckily had at the time) or community who helps us stay motivated and positive, or we need to feel we have some power to overcome destructive systems.

There were also day-to-day struggles in achieving program success. Many clients were healing from extensive trauma or were focused on staying sober, finding housing, and reuniting with their families. This often put meeting with me at the bottom of their priorities list. As a service provider, I had to understand how to meet them where they were at -- instead of lecturing them for missing an appointment as some service providers might do, I asked them what their barriers were to showing up and how I could help remove those barriers. The distinct difference with transformative justice is that practitioners aren't taking a paternalistic posture with clients as is often observed in carceral environments; rather, we act as partners in their life planning. This might be more demanding on your staff's time, but it's an empowering strategy. Not only does it acknowledge formerly incarcerated citizens as competent human beings, but also adopting this mentality can help prevent burnout. It allows clients to take responsibility for their own progress, and it gives program staff the agency to provide help in a way that it is actually needed.

I want to share some additional tips on creating an environment at your organization where burnout is consciously addressed. But first, what causes burnout? Let's explore a couple theories.

ADAM GRANT: "Givers don’t burn out when they devote too much time and energy to giving. They burn out when they’re working with people in need but are unable to help effectively."
In other words, we are at risk for burnout when we don't see the fruits of our labor! But sometimes all we need is a slight shift in perspective. Yes, my client was distraught, and the team sympathized; however, within several months she had done a career pivot toward social work and counseling, which she said became a more stable and fulfilling option for her.

SELIGMAN'S THEORY: Part of burnout relates to learned helplessness. In Seligman's theory, learned helplessness begins with a negative belief system made up of the 3 P's: Personalization, Pervasiveness, and Permanence.

• Personalization: Believing your failures or rejections are due to something inherent within you. i.e. They didn't show up for their appointment because they think I'm bad at my job. We didn't win the grant money because there is something wrong with me.
• Pervasiveness: Believing that failure in one area will affect all areas of your life. i.e. Now that I think of it, not only are we failing to get legislative change, but the whole system is messed up, and all this work and effort is meaningless.
• Permanence: Believing that you will remain "stuck." i.e. Nothing I do will ever change the way things work; this feeling of failure will never go away.

Here are some tips on how you can prevent burnout on your team:

• Celebrate your staff's successes. Acknowledge the fruits of your labor -- even if "success" is defined creatively, it is a great motivator when you are acknowledging how your team's work is moving the needle.
• Pay attention to how your staff vents when they are frustrated. Are you noticing language that sounds like the "3 P's of Learned Helplessness"? If so, work to correct these optics. The more you work against negative belief systems, the more resilient your team will become. I learned that from Henry Cloud.
• Foster acceptance of "failures" (aka "teachable moments," "opportunities for growth," "learning curves"). Ask yourself what is more productive: a team that is too frightened, defensive, or untrusting to speak honestly about its needs and mistakes, or a team that is open about its struggles or "failures" in order to address them head-on and make adjustments where necessary? Which environment will allow for growth, mutual understanding, and respect? One that acknowledges everyone's humanity, of course! When people aren't afraid of their work environment and they can trust their colleagues, they will be much more resilient when the work is particularly challenging.
• Give people space. In a highly demanding work environment, ensure you aren't micromanaging and that you are allowing people to deal with their GUS (Grown-Up Stuff). Whether they are attending to a parent's sudden health issue, taking their child to school, or just need time for a dental appointment...everyone deserves some flexibility, within reason, to attend to their life. If you are having trouble granting flexibility to staff because of trust issues or the work isn't getting done, then there is a bigger problem at hand.

This work is consistently demanding, and for every win, you might see a new challenge arise. Stay positive. Keep at it. Be in community with each other. And don't abandon your passion for better justice.

For organizational consultation, you can always reach out to Transformative Justice Solutions. We specialize in helping criminal justice organizations that are working in reform, advocacy, direct service, and alternatives to incarceration. Reach out to me at katherine [at] transformthework.com