Principal Researcher / Consultant
Dione Hills
I have been at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations (TIHR) since 1986. My key commitment, during this time, has been to finding evaluation and research strategies that make a real difference to the organisations or policy areas for which they are undertaken. This means making sure that the research strategies adopted are realistic and ‘fit for purpose’, and incorporating consultancy skills where appropriate, to support learning for all those involved (funders, managers, staff and beneficiaries). This may involve including an action learning element in the research, providing training in evaluation skills, or working closely with those involved to make sense of emerging research results and what these mean in terms of next steps in their work.
I moved to the TIHR after working as a senior researcher at the Department of Health for several years. Since coming to the Institute I contributed to the establishment of a specialist evaluation unit (Evaluation Review and Development Unit (EDRU) to explore innovative evaluation theory and methods. I have been involved in the evaluation of many major national and European programmes, as well as some small local projects. Most of these have been in the areas of community development, public health, disability support and employment, training and development - and most recently, transport (road safety and promotion of cycling).
I also recently completed the TIHR Coaching for Leadership and Professional Development training course and am exploring how the skills I leant on this might be used to develop an ‘evaluation coaching’ stream to the Institute's work, alongside our evaluation training activities.
More generally, a key theme in my work is how best to address the challenge of evaluating complex programmes, using tools such as ‘theory of change’ evaluation strategies and web-based data collection tools (to support local projects in contribute more effectively to evaluation activities) and most recently, Social Return on Investment (SROI) approach to capturing economic benefits.
I am also very interested in how public sector services and civil society (particularly as represented by voluntary, community and faith organisations) can work together most effectively to complement each other 's strengths. I recently led an action research project to provide the opportunity for dialogue between mental health professionals and traditional healers. This built on my earlier work exploring how mainstream health services and practitioners of alternative therapies (such as acupuncture, herbalism, massage and osteopathy) could work together best to improve the wellbeing of people with chronic and disabling health problems.
Recent publications to which I've contributed include a review of best approaches to attribution in transport research, guidelines for self evaluation in local Prevent projects, a Work Foundation project looking at ways of measuring the ‘public value’ (read here), an Open University course on perspectives on complementary and alternative medicine (read here), a recent Department of Health funded overview of public health evidence for tackling health inequalities (read here), and a guide book on the evaluation of community based health interventions currently available on the NICE website.
