Helen Simons

Background

About Helen Simons

I started my professional life as a teacher and psychologist, but most of my working life has been in evaluation - evaluation of educational, health and social programmes. I take a democratic approach to evaluation believing that all participants and stakeholders olders have a perspective that contributes to evaluation knowledge and that equity and fairness are core values in a democratic society. Case study evaluation is my preferred methdology as it enables me to get close to presenting the experience of those who interpret the policies in the field and the social/political reality of the site in which the programe or policy is situated. I have also in my evaluation life spent much time facilitating institutional self-evaluation. In the second half of my career I turned to the arts, retraining to a degree, and now incorporate artistic processes, where appropriate, into evaluation.