Hannah has wide-ranging experience of developing, delivering, evaluating and improving services. She has worked with many different clients, including the Home Office, Department for Education, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, Welsh Government, Offices of Police and Crime Commissioners, local authorities, Clinical Commissioning Groups, voluntary sector organisations and private sector providers. Her work covers a range of social issues and policy areas, including multiple disadvantage, domestic abuse, violence reduction, early intervention and support within the criminal justice system, radicalisation and exploitation, and specialist support for young adults.
“My focus is on collaborating with clients to support evidence-based decision-making that makes a difference to the quality of services and to the outcomes and experiences of people who might need them. I really enjoy working with a range of stakeholder groups to harness their perspectives and expertise to evaluate current design and delivery and suggest improved ways of working for the future. I am particularly interested in approaches which involve co-production and in qualitative research methods. I understand the challenges inherent in evaluating complex programmes where both implementation and outcomes are informed by the local and national context and where the timescales and resources for delivery and evaluation are often limited. This makes it particularly important to deliver robust research and evaluation which is feasible to conduct and which provides useful findings and insights for future programme development, policy and practice.”
Hannah’s experience includes:
- Project managing and directing longitudinal, formative and summative evaluations of programmes and services, with a focus on both impact and process. Recent examples include: the national evaluation of the MEAM (Making Every Adult Matter) Approach; evaluations and reviews in three different regions of initiatives promoting diversion away from the criminal justice system and into support (including alternatives to prosecution); evaluation a Police and Crime Commissioner’s Office of the work of their local Violence Reduction Unit; and evaluation of a range of different initiatives to improve responses to domestic abuse for both victims/survivors and people committing abuse.
- Undertaking research to inform understanding of current practice and/or provide examples of good practice. This has included: desk-based research and consultation for the Department for Education and Home Office into children’s social care responses to radicalisation, exploitation and modern slavery; responses in children’s social care local authority support for non-EEA migrant children who are victims of modern slavery; for the Welsh Government into education, training and employment pathways for young people involved in the criminal justice system; in-depth literature review for a provider of criminal justice services into good practice in learning and skills provision in the secure estate.
Hannah usually undertakes mixed methods research and evaluation, though she has also delivered projects based on a single method. Her main areas of skill, interest and experience include:
- Developing theories of change and logic models for programmes, including approaches based on co-production, stakeholder consultation and/or review of documentation.
- Scoping evaluation feasibility and developing evaluation frameworks and methodologies.
- Qualitative consultation with wide-ranging stakeholder groups, such as people using services or with experience of needing them in the past, delivery staff, strategic and policy leads, commissioners, funders and community stakeholders.
- Visiting services and hubs to observe practice, map pathways and consult with staff and the people they support.
- Identifying and analysing performance and service use data to investigate the outcomes of programmes for service users.
- Synthesising information from multiple methods to produce clear and comprehensive reports for clients and other key audiences.
- Working with stakeholders to build on the findings of research and evaluation, including presenting and discussing findings and recommendations with different audiences, action planning and options appraisal.
Hannah has practical experience as a front-line worker in both prison and community-based services. This involved working with people who had a range of different support needs, such as disabled people, those using drugs and alcohol, involved in the criminal justice system, with mental health issues or physical health problems, with learning differences, and/or living in poverty.
She has a BA from the University of Cambridge and an MRes in Social Policy from the University of York.
