Information Exchange Workshop - March 2005
We held our first Information Exchange workshop on Wednesday, 9th March 2005. We had representatives from DATA, DAIRS, DICE, WIDE, British Red Cross & Mary Frances Trust.
The Aim of the Workshops is to bring together the local and specialist disability information providers from across Surrey, and provide a forum through which we can develop the services we provide.
Objectives of the Workshops- Sharing ideas
- Identifying opportunities for joint development work
- Looking at different approaches and tools
- Taking time to stop and think about particular aspects of service provision
We took as our main theme ‘Monitoring & Evaluation’. We defined and explored the differences between monitoring and evaluation. A quick survey of participants ranked the key reason for and use of evaluation work:
- Justify work to funders 12 points
- Monitor the quality of service 11 points
- Demonstrate a need 9 points
- Identify gaps in provision 10 points
- Identify areas needing promotion 10 points
- Identify skills & training needs 7 points
- Meeting you own organisation’s needs 13 points
Some of the attendees had brought copies of their paper-based forms for recording their enquiries, and we looked at a demo version of a software package called AIMS (produced by London Advice Services) designed to help information and advice services in the voluntary sector manage enquiries and case studies.