Karen Anderson is my favorite “newbie” evaluator. Karen completed a master’s degree in social work a couple years ago. She’s currently an evaluator at a nonprofit in Atlanta and she’s the Diversity Programs Intern for the American Evaluation Association. In all her “spare” time, she’s doing pro-bono evaluation for the State of Black Gay America Summit organizers. And she’s a blogger!

You can read Karen’s LinkedIn profile here, and you can read her blog, On Top of the Box Evaluation, by clicking here.

I hope you enjoy Karen’s guest post.

– Ann Emery

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When I think about the “newbie” evaluator or the not so new professional to the evaluation field and the necessary knowledge base and skills needed to not only survive, but to thrive, I reflect upon Jean King’s Essential Competencies for Program Evaluators.

King’s Essential Competencies for Program Evaluators include:

1. Professional Practice: These are the fundamental norms and values of evaluation practice, which include working ethically, applying evaluation standards, and considering the public welfare, which is further explained in the AEA Guiding Principles for Evaluation under Responsibilities for General and Public Welfare.
2. Situational Analysis: The unique interests, issues, and contextual circumstances of evaluation.
3. Reflective Practice: One’s own evaluation expertise and need for growth, which includes knowing self, reflecting on your practice, pursuing professional development, and building professional relationships.
4. Interpersonal Competence: Do you have the people skills for evaluation practice? This includes negotiation skills, conflict resolution, cross cultural competence, and facilitating constructive interpersonal interactions.
5. Project Management: King describes this as the “nut and bolts” of evaluation work” in the presentation above. This includes presenting work in a timely manner , budgeting, responding to RFPs, use of technology, and supervising and training others.
6. Systematic Inquiry: The technical aspects of evaluation. What’s your knowledge base? Do you know qualitative, quantitative, and/or mixed methods? Developing program theory, evaluation design and evaluation questions are also major components of this competency area.

So in terms of the Essential Competencies for Program Evaluators, how are you doing? I wish I had some type of rating scale to help me to see how far I’ve come along. I’d have to say on the job training, webinars, and seeking out evaluation trainings, no matter how brief, like the online American Evaluation Association’s Coffee Break Demonstration Series has helped me to come a long way since my grad school days (2010).

Newbies: What are some “essentials” that you think are missing from above that relate to your evaluation practice growth and development?

Not so newbies: What steps do you take to sharpen your evaluation skills and to increase your knowledge base?

– Karen Anderson

Children as young as six find the packets attractive (Picture: AP)

They were drawn to the packets ‘without having a full understanding of how deadly the product is’, Cancer Research UK said.

Youngsters aged six to 11 were asked to describe what appealed to them about brand packaging.

‘It makes you feel like you’re in a wonderland of happiness,’ said one.

Other responses – which were filmed by the charity for an anti-smoking campaign – included: ‘The pictures actually look quite nice. Ice cubes and mint’, ‘It reminds me of a Ferrari’, ‘Is that the royal sign?’ and ‘Yeah. Pink, pink, pink’.

‘This footage provides us with a chilling insight into how powerful branding and marketing can be,’ said  Jean King, Cancer Research UK’s director of tobacco control.

The charity  looked at cigarette marketing over the past 50 years and how packets were designed to target specific groups.

It also asked groups of 15-year-olds to choose which brand most appealed to them.

Girls liked the Silk Cut and Vogue Superslims which ‘suggested femininity and pleasure, such as perfume, make-up and chocolate’.

But boys preferred the Marlboro Bright Leaf, Lambert & Butler and Benson & Hedges, which ‘suggested maturity, popularity and confidence’.

‘Once the young person tries smoking, nicotine has a chance to do its work in turning him or her into an addict,’ said Prof Robert West, Cancer Research UK’s director of tobacco research at University College London.

The charity wants all branding on tobacco packaging to be removed.

Rates of lung cancer are continuing to rise in British women (Picture: John Stillwell/PA)

The highest number of newly diagnosed cases were reported in 2009 when the total number topped over 18,000.

Cases reached 39.3 for every 100,000 women in Britain, compared with 22.2 per 100,000 in 1975 when there were fewer than 8,000 cases.

The Cancer Research UK figures also show the number of lung cancer deaths in Britain stands at almost 35,000 per year – 19,410 men and 15,449 women in 2010.

Jean King, director of tobacco control at Cancer Research UK, said: ‘These latest figures highlight the deadly impact of tobacco.

‘The continuing rise of lung cancer in women reflects the high number of female smokers several decades ago when attitudes were different.

‘Tobacco advertising hasn’t appeared on UK television since 1965, but that didn’t stop the marketing of cigarettes.’

Cigarette displays in supermarkets have been banned (Picture: PA)

Ms King also supported the government’s plans to stub out cigarette branding to make the habit less appealing to smokers.

She said: ‘It’s vital the UK closes one of the last remaining loopholes that portrays smoking as something glamorous and normal, rather than the lethal product it truly is.

‘Ending the packet racket and putting all cigarettes in plain packs with large health warnings is crucial.

‘No one wants to see children take up smoking, and while plain packs won’t stop everyone from smoking, it will give millions of children one less reason to start.’

Over 80 percent of lung cancer cases are caused through smoking.

Cigarette displays in supermarkets are banned from today onwards (Picture: PA)

The new legislation is aimed at cutting down on the number of smokers in the country and in response to Department of Health research showing cigarette displays in shops encourage young people to take up the habit.

The research showed 300,000 under-16s had tried smoking and one in five children aged 11 to 15 classed themselves as regular smokers.

Thirty-nine per cent of adult smokers meanwhile said they were smoking regularly before the age of 16.

‘We cannot ignore the fact that young people are recruited into smoking by colourful, eye-catching, cigarette displays,’ health minister Anne Milton said.

‘Banning displays of cigarettes and tobacco will help young people resist the pressure to start smoking and help the thousands of adults in England who are currently trying to quit.’

Health secretary Andrew Lansley said the ban was aimed at creating a culture shift (Picture: PA)

Under the new laws tobacco products must be kept out of sight in large shops or supermarkets except when staff are serving customers or restocking supplies.

The same ban, punishable by a £5,000 fine or imprisonment if violated, will be rolled out to smaller shops and businesses by 2015.

Health secretary Andrew Lansley said the ban was in place to ensure ‘we no longer see smoking as a part of life’.

‘It’s also about supporting smokers who want to give up,’ he told BBC Breakfast.

‘There’s more than a third of smokers who say they want to stop. Each year we have nearly 800,000 smokers who try to quit, 50 per cent succeed.

‘We want to continue to increase that proportion, help more people to stop.’

Jean King, of Cancer Research UK, added: ‘We want everything we can possibly do to make cigarettes unavailable and inaccessible and something that children don’t see as a normal product.

‘We need to do everything we can to prevent young people getting hold of cigarettes.’