Celebrating 15 years: Evaluating diverse programs across the country
Program evaluation is one of the most valuable investments an organisation can make in their individual programs or service as a whole. It provides important insights about how well programs are doing and their alignment with best practice and identifies what factors drive (or hinder) intended service user outcomes.
Evaluations answer critical questions that contribute to decisions about quality improvement, service development, program monitoring and resource allocation.
Over the past 15 years, we’ve partnered with services across Australia to evaluate some of the most innovative and responsive programs in the alcohol and other drug sector. These evaluations have helped build the evidence base for models that work and have supported services to refine and improve how they deliver care. Here’s a snapshot of some of that work over the past 15 years.
A step up/step down methamphetamine withdrawal model
Back in 2015, we worked with Uniting to evaluate their new step up/step down withdrawal model. The service had made significant changes to better meet the needs of people using methamphetamine and our role was to help them understand how well those changes were working. Drawing on clinical data, outcome measures, staff feedback and client perspectives, we provided an evidence informed assessment of the model’s impact and outlined practical recommendations to guide future service delivery.
Day rehabilitation services across Victoria
In 2018, we partnered with the Victorian Government Department of Health to evaluate community based therapeutic day rehabilitation services funded under the Victorian Government Ice Action Plan. These programs, delivered across Victoria, aimed to support people who had recently stabilised or withdrawn from alcohol and other drugs and needed intensive, structured support without entering residential care.
Our evaluation examined the models in use, assessed their impact across different client groups, and identified what helped and hindered effective delivery. We tracked program outcomes over multiple phases, drawing on consultations, service data and best practice benchmarks to gather a detailed picture of what was working and why.
The National Ice Action Strategy
In 2021, were contracted by the Australian Government Department of Health to undertake an evaluation of the National Ice Action Strategy. We held more than 60 focus groups from across the health, justice and education sectors and analysed data on outputs and outcomes collected by the funded programs, focusing on impact and quality. Our comprehensive report details the evaluation outcomes of all 31 programs under the Strategy.
The methamphetamine outreach program in Alice Springs
More recently, in 2024, we worked with Drug and Alcohol Services Australia (DASA) to evaluate their methamphetamine outreach program – an intensive case management model operating in a context of rising methamphetamine use and growing demand for support in Central Australia. Through a collaborative design process involving staff workshops, stakeholder consultations, data analysis and service user surveys, we explored how the program was working and which elements were driving positive outcomes. The final report provided a clear roadmap for continuous quality improvement and future program monitoring.
There’s no one size fits all approach to evaluation, and it can be complex and resource intensive. Our methodology for conducting evaluations has been refined over the past 15 years to be as rigorous, collaborative and efficient as possible to get our partners the answers that they need.
Across all of these projects, we’ve been proud to help services understand the impact of their work, strengthen their models, and deliver better outcomes. When it’s done right, evaluation is more than just a measurement task; it’s a process of collective learning that helps shape a more effective, responsive system.
