What Is ETA?

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What Is Evaluation to Action?

Evaluation to Action (ETA) is a collaborative Indigenous child health research project focused on an evaluation model and its impact when tailored to Ontario Indigenous communities.

Scope

ETA is guided by the voices of Aboriginal children to support local health leaders as they decide what programs and services to implement to maximize available financial and human resources. This important work is done in partnership with 6 Aboriginal communities to produce Child Health Report Cards, assess the effectiveness of a physical activity program; either Right to PLAY’s Promoting Lifeskills in Aboriginal Youth (PLAY) Program or the Aboriginal Youth Mentorship (AYMP) Program, and a mindfulness program; the Holistic Arts-Based Program (HAP).

Goal

To develop a tailored ETA approach that will inform health program and service planning to improve the health and well-being of Aboriginal children in Ontario.

Objectives

The main objectives of this project are:

• To co-create community Child Health Report Cards and evaluate children's health promotion programs to inform local decision-making.
• To learn how ETA affects decision-making within each partner community and strengthens capacity to generate and utilize local evaluation results.
• To create a collaborative set of wise practices about research and evaluation that can be applied successfully in Indigenous communities across the province of Ontario.

The success of the ETA project requires community input at every step to ensure that what is learned is useful and actionable. 

Responding to The Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Calls to Action

Given the recent Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommendations (Dec 15, 2015) which included 94 “Calls to Action”, the time for change is now.

Justice Murray Sinclair notes that “Reconciliation is about forging and maintaining respectful relationships. There are no shortcuts.” (National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, 2015).

Improving the health of children is a key priority of Indigenous leaders and is highlighted in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's (TRC) Calls to Action. Call to Action # 18 urges Canadians to “recognize and implement the health-care rights of Aboriginal people” and #19 urges us to “establish measurable goals to identify and close the gaps in health outcomes between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities, and to publish annual progress reports and assess long-term trends” and includes mental health and child health among the recommended indicators (National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, 2015).

The ETA project recognizes these Calls to Action and hopes to continue to move forward in a way that addresses the needs and inequalities outlined, while maintaining a Two-Eyed Seeing approach and honouring the wise practices collaboratively established with our partner communities. We hope to achieve this by co-creating Indigenous Child Health Report Cards annually and helping to assess long-term trends as recommended in the TRC.

The Child Health Report Cards are tailored to each of our partner communities in which indicators were chosen by community leaders. These include local community data and self-reported data, which take into account each aspect of the Medicine Wheel (i.e. Mental, Spiritual, Emotional, and Physical health). Two health promotion programs will also be evaluated for their fit in each community, thereby recognizing what programs are most useful and providing the background information to help close the gaps in health outcomes between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities.