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Monitoring evaluation CLC

The Central Land Council (CLC) represents Aboriginal people in Central Australia and supports them to manage their land, make the most of the opportunities it offers and promote their rights.

The CHSSC has partnered with the CLC for more than 11 years to support the monitoring and evaluation of its community development programs which currently support 35 Central Australian Aboriginal communities. These programs aim to maintain Aboriginal identity, language, culture and connection to country and to improve health, education and employment outcomes. These programs are all funded by Aboriginal people using income from land-use agreements.

In 2021, then CHSSC Co-Director Linda Kelly and CHSSC Senior Research Fellow Danielle Campbell worked with the CLC to redesign the community development program framework and to develop an accompanying monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) strategy. The CHSSC is now partnering with the CLC to support strategy implementation. This includes analysing information collected throughout the year from individual project reports, community-based monitoring, staff reflections and independent evaluations of specific projects. This is supplemented each year by in-depth reviews of selected projects or areas of work. This information and analysis is captured in annual monitoring and evaluation reports written by CHSSC staff.

Since 2021, the CHSSC has also been working with the remote Aboriginal community at Lajamanu in collaboration with the CLC to understand and describe what change is happening in their community. In particular, the project seeks to determine a contextually appropriate measure of wellbeing by drawing out what is required for a good life in the community.

The project then aims to support the community to monitor changes in wellbeing over time using participatory research approaches which promote community ownership of the data and support them to decide any actions to take in response. This includes helping the CLC and other organisations working in Lajamanu to adapt their programs in response to the evidence emerging from the research.

Our work with the CLC is currently led by Research Fellow Alex Gyles with support from Senior Yapa (Aboriginal) Researcher Marlkirdi Napaljarri Rose, Senior Research Fellow Mardi Grundy , Research Associate Louise Stanley and Adjunct Senior Research Fellow Ros David.