The purpose of this panel is to discuss the challenges of conducting program evaluation within the community. The presentation is geared towards young community psychologists who want to work with community or government organizations.

Many young program evaluators feel like the tightrope walker in a circus performance. Everyone is watching you perform while you are attempting to balance research, community and government objectives. Unfortunately, research, community and government objectives rarely align, and the community or government agencies often resist change. Likewise, research methodology is resistant to change. Consequently, the job of program evaluator is a balancing act requiring patience, social skills, compromise and confidence.

Program evaluation in the community is different from the ideal program evaluation learned in the classroom. Many times respected community or government agencies provide services without clear objectives. When this occurs, the job of program evaluator may become extremely difficult without first contributing as a program developer. With great tact and grace, the young program evaluator must help agencies to identify clear goals of the program. For example, providing mentors to youth may be a community or government agency's objective, but it is not a clear research objective. A program evaluator needs to help community and government agencies identify what they hope youth to gain from being matched with a mentor. With these answers researchable objectives may be outlined and program evaluation may occur.

Young program evaluators face many challenges when working within the community. One of the greatest challenges facing program evaluators is building rapport. This is difficult for many reasons. Often program evaluators are seen as authority figures. Without great patience, rapport and tact, one's suggestions can be seen as critical and condescending instead of helpful. Furthermore, agencies take pride in their work and staff are typically underpaid or overworked. The program evaluator may appear like an outsider without a clear understanding about how hard staff work and how little extra time they have for program evaluation. This is a recipe for defensiveness and a possible unwillingness to heed suggestions. In contrast, sometimes program staff members are overwhelmed with their positions. These agencies may be overly willing to let the program evaluator come in and take over. Neither of these scenarios encourages successful evaluations in terms of community psychology ideals. They hinder the ability of the agency to adopt or continue the revised program suggested by the evaluator.

Program evaluators possess knowledge that community and government agencies lack. Often as graduate students we may feel as though we have little knowledge to contribute to an agency. In contrast, all of the members on this panel felt that they had something valuable to contribute to the programs that were evaluated. We contributed in many ways. For example, we helped in areas concerning cultural sensitivity, research design and methodology, defining clear program goals and objectives, providing needs assessments, and linking the agency to other community organizations.