Written by: Courtney Carr

The EnCompass Learning Center (ELC) is committed to strengthening communities and organizations through the use of evidence, learning, and leadership development. Our partnership with EvalYouth to provide scholarships for young and emerging evaluators is an important part of our Eval4Action commitments. The ELC offers high-quality online learning programs to participants from around the world. Our work is guided by a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion for participants and faculty. It is an honor to welcome EvalYouth members to our community of learners.

Maria Montenegro, an EvalYouth scholarship awardee, is a program evaluator with 5 years of experience working in various social policy areas. She has an MSc in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of Alberta. Ms. Montenegro has experience designing and implementing research in the public sector, post-secondary institutions, and the nonprofit sector. She is currently an Evaluation Specialist at Fraser Health Authority, where she conducts evaluations of COVID-19 mitigation strategies. She is a member of CES, AEA, and EvalYouth Global Network. Ms. Montenegro attended the Facilitating Evaluation course with Dr. Michael Quinn Patton in June.

How will participating in this ELC course support your career goals?

This course provided me with specific examples, techniques, and principles of facilitating evaluation that are relevant to all stages of evaluation projects. The real-life examples provided by Dr. Michael Quinn Patton, discussions with other course attendees, and interactive activities emphasized the crucial role of facilitation skills in mitigating common evaluation challenges.

What are you excited to take back from the Facilitating Evaluation course into your work?

I look forward to applying these skills to not only improve the credibility and utility of my evaluations, but also to build evaluative thinking capacity among the groups I work with.

Join the ELC community

We look forward to welcoming more young and emerging evaluators to our courses through this partnership with EvalYouth and the scholarship program. To hear about upcoming ELC courses, scholarships, and other news, please sign up for our ELC mailing list and visit the Course Catalog.