Posted By: Debbie King | January 19th, 2010
This subject was presented at a workshop facilitated by Success Works at the 2007 Australian Evaluation Society Conference in Melbourne.
As evaluators in social policy areas, Success Works often finds it has to seek out people who are traditionally considered to be ‘hard to reach’ in order to gain their opinions or experiences of a service, program or policy.
Traditionally the ‘hard to reach’ groups have been defined as: people who are homeless; people who use drugs or alcohol; offenders; Indigenous people; culturally or linguistically diverse people; people with mental health issues; people with cognitive impairments; people with disabilities; young people; older people; children etc.
However, in Success Works’ experience, ‘hard to reach’ can also include professional such as general practitioners or lawyers; people with full-time jobs and people who are not members of community organisations.
In thinking about ‘hard to reach’ groups we have also realised that there are two distinct sub-categories who require different strategies: people who are harder to find and people who are harder to engage. Some groups fit into both categories.
Harder to find groups include: older people; young people; children; people who are homeless; people with mental health issues; people with full-time jobs; people who are not members of organisations. While it is possible to find people in these categories, it is necessary to take deliberate steps to do so.
Harder to engage groups include: people who are homeless; Indigenous people; culturally and linguistically diverse people; offenders; people with mental health issues; people with cognitive impairments ; professionals; young people. Again, while it is possible to engage people in these categories, it is often necessary to take deliberate steps to ensure their engagement.
Ways to find harder to reach groups include: going to places where people in that group meet together (e.g. clubs, schools, specific locations); going to services who already work with the group; using intermediaries; being flexible about times and locations (i.e. approaching people on weekends, using non-traditional locations like trains, train stations and shopping centres).
Ways to engage harder to reach groups include: being clear and upfront about ‘what’s in it for them’; offering incentives (e.g. payment); offering food; organising an event (e.g. a community bbq); using intermediaries; being culturally competent.
In our experience, thinking about who needs to be involved in the evaluation or project and how they will be ‘found’ and ‘engaged’ is an important starting point – so that the ‘hard to reach’ are not put into the too hard basket.
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