Scottish Recovery Network

Day

Wednesday 11 February

Time slot

09:15-10:30

Room

Carrick room
Wheelchair accessible

Contact

Iona MacTaggart
0131 475 2380

Topics

Finance, funding & fundraising Impact & evaluation Policy

Overall aim

1. Challenge traditional evaluation approaches - Demonstrate an alternative way to evaluate peer support that moves beyond conventional metrics and honors the relational, values-based nature of peer support

2. Share and demonstrate the outcome map tool - Introduce the co-designed outcome map and show how it can capture what truly matters in peer support while meeting practical needs for funding and accountability

3. Co-design and refine through feedback - Gather participant insights to continue developing the tool collaboratively, ensuring it remains relevant and useful across diverse peer support contexts

4. Learn from actual implementation - Hear from Dundee Peer Network and Bipolar Scotland about their experiences using the outcome map in practice

Description

How do you measure connection? How do you evaluate hope?

Peer support works because of its relational nature, its authenticity and its grounding in shared experience. Yet these very qualities make it difficult to evaluate using traditional metrics. Funders want numbers. Commissioners want evidence. But tick-box approaches often miss what makes peer support truly transformative.

This workshop challenges conventional evaluation by introducing an adaptable outcome map specifically co-designed for peer support: a tool that bridges the gap between demonstrating impact and staying true to peer support values. Using Matter of Focus's Outcome map framework, Scottish Recovery network have created the tool collaboratively with 14 organisations across Scotland. The adaptable outcome map provides a structured, efficient way to capture what really matters: the relational impact, the shifts in connection and belonging, the changes that spreadsheets struggle to hold.

As part of a Scotland-wide roadshow, this session shares the tool with the wider peer support community and gathers insights to inform its continued development.

You'll hear from two organisations who helped create the outcome map and are now putting it into practice with Scottish Recovery Network’s support: Dundee Peer Network and Bipolar Scotland. They'll share honest reflections on using the tool to develop their own evaluation reports: what worked, what challenged them and how it's changing their approach to demonstrating value.

Whether you're wrestling with evaluation requirements, seeking better ways to tell your service's story, or simply curious about what peer-centered evaluation could look like, this workshop offers practical tools and real examples of evaluation that honours what peer support is really about.

Join us to explore evaluation approaches that actually make sense for peer support.

Who is the event aimed at?

Development / Education officers, Managers, Project/line managers

Who is speaking at this event?

Iona MacTaggart - Dundee Volunteer and Voluntary Action
Paul Byrne - Dundee Volunteer and Voluntary Action
Kimberly Logan - Bipolar Scotland