Monitoring and evaluation of social services – Data: types, flow, collection and reporting process

The third meeting on establishing an effective system for monitoring and evaluating the delivery of community social services for people with disabilities is dedicated to data collection, as well as data flow between institutions and reporting process.

The meeting is held with active participation from more than 50 representatives of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy, the EU Delegation in Skopje, the Institute for Social Activates, social work centres, community social service providers (public and private) and the project team of the project “Support to the modernization and deinstitutionalization of social services”

Maria Marinakou, Project Team Leader stated, “Data management is a factory of knowledge of the monitoring and evaluation process. Because through this process of how we collect, how we connect and how we manage the data that we need for the monitoring and evaluation, we gain the knowledge we need in order to understand the realities in the field in order to make informed policy decisions. So, the data management process is the backbone of the monitoring and evaluation.”

Aleksandra Georgievska, project expert involved in preparation of architecture for monitoring and evaluation explained the process: Firstly, we focused on the types of data needed for the overall monitoring and evaluation system. The data types correspond to the indicator types, and according to the logic of things, we grouped them in the same way.  Mihaela Stoichici Varlan, project expert, stated: Data collection is about how the data is collected, how often and what implies data collection. We need to identify and define the data we need in order to ensure the quality of the processes, activities, social services delivered.