Effective Use of Theory of Change for Social Services (Synchronous e-learning)

This course on theory of change introduces participants to the theory-driven family of evaluation approaches and highlights the importance of making explicit the theory underlying any policy, programme or intervention as a basis for planning, implementation as well as monitoring and evaluation. A theory of change explains how the activities undertaken by a policy, a programme or an intervention contribute to a chain of action that leads to the intended outcomes. A theory of change is also a diagrammatic representation of a programme blueprint – it makes explicit the inputs, the activities, the outputs and the outcomes, and the links between them. Through this approach, the precise link between activities and the achievement of outcomes are more fully understood. With a detailed understanding of how change take places, the theory of change can potentially provide analytical insights into programme design at the planning stage. It can be useful for studying programme processes or implementation, as well as for identifying programme outputs and outcomes for monitoring and evaluation.

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