Exploring Indigenous Approaches to Evaluation and Research in the Context of Victim Services and Supports

In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada released 94 Calls to Action (CTA) to redress the legacy of residential schools and advance the process of Canadian reconciliation. In CTA 40, the Commission focussed on victims’ programs and services by calling on all levels of government, in collaboration with Indigenous people, to create adequately funded and accessible Indigenous-specific victim programs and services as well as appropriate evaluation mechanisms to measure their effectiveness. There are several elements to this CTA, and this collection of papers is focused on the component of CTA 40 that calls for “appropriate evaluation mechanisms” within a victim services context. The Department of Justice Canada (the Department) engaged with four Indigenous evaluation subject matter experts to explore Indigenous approaches and methods used in evaluation and research. These experts submitted individual papers intended to increase awareness, knowledge and understanding about Indigenous perspectives and models of evaluation and research. This is to help increase levels of cultural competence within evaluation policy and practice, program design and development, and amongst researchers. The four expert papers are introduced in this summary report, prepared by the Department to pull together common themes from the four individual papers. The thoughts and ideas are those of the subject matter experts, not the Department. Readers are encouraged to refer to the four appended papers (see the Appendices), for more in-depth information and context related to Indigenous approaches an methods used in evaluation, research, and program design and delivery.