Local governments are encouraged to share their evaluations with  local government management, their steering committee, evaluation participants and community members. Some ideas for sharing findings are as follows:  

• create a display at the library outlining the initiative and results, and include photos (with appropriate permissions) and creative activities where appropriate  
• include an overview in the local government newsletter  
• upload the report and summary to the local government website 
• consider presentation ideas from various stakeholders who will know how to best reach their communities  
• hold community meetings to share information  
• run information sessions in different workplace and  community settings, and  
• use technology platforms to distribute visually engaging and relevant messages. 

Remember to reflect on and celebrate successes along the way. While prevention work is very rewarding, it can also be challenging and change does not happen in a predictable, linear fashion. As prevention requires a long-term approach it can sometimes be difficult to see the successes that have occurred. However, there are still many ways to celebrate achievements including:  

• making regular times to reflect on the successes your work has achieved (such as a standing agenda item in team meetings)  
• sending thank you notes and hosting morning teas  
• collecting information along the way to publish that shows growth in capacity, innovations, strategic competencies, collaborations, stories and visions of a better future 
• celebrating the ‘small wins’ or ‘quick wins’ as these can keep momentum going  
• ensuring that your evaluation framework can measure both the intended and unintended impacts of your work so that you can celebrate all positive impact in your workplace and community.  

Latrobe City Council: Using a logic model to demonstrate the impact of your work

When Latrobe City Council wanted to see how they could better plan and learn from their past and present experiences of implementing prevention of family violence initiatives within their organisation and community. 

The Project Officer recognised that although they had a Preventing Family Violence Plan, it didn’t have any SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound) measures or indicators to measure the impact of their work. Developing a logic model for the toolkit project provided an opportunity for council to think more deeply about their goals and objectives and the desired outcomes of their work. In developing the logic model, they asked not just ‘What do we want to do?’ but also ‘What do we want to achieve by that?’ For example, rather than only noting that a training program had been conducted, they had to record how many people attended and measure changes in participants’ attitudes that resulted from the sessions. 

The improved outcome reporting has been used to further promote the work undertaken in the project and can be used as evidence for future funding applications. For example, the fact that 95 per cent of attendees said the time spent in a MATE (Motivating Action Through Empowerment) training session was worthwhile has been used to further promote the training session.