Documenting decision making around program or service changes will assist you in monitoring or evaluating your service delivery during the pandemic.

This short article is for anyone who is delivering, or planning to deliver, a program or service modified in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The article provides prompts for documenting decision making around program or service changes, and outlines how this may assist you in monitoring or evaluating your service delivery during this time.

Clear documentation of your service delivery changes during your response to the pandemic can:

• ensure shared understanding and expectations of your program and services; including current outcomes, development and delivery
• help you to communicate your current program barriers, adaptions or solutions to your funders
• provide a record of changes that can be used to assist in both evaluation activities and in further decision making.

Why you should document changes to your service or program

Responding to the needs of your community during a time of rapid change may require ongoing changes to your service. Documenting these changes means that you can show your organisation that you are continuing to provide appropriate services and meet funding requirements. It can also help you to monitor your new program or service to ensure it has been effectively implemented and meets community needs.

If you are undertaking an evaluation, or routinely collect service or client outcomes data, changes to your service delivery can also affect your results. Accurate documentation of your planning and decision making will help you to know if you are still collecting the right data for evaluation or for effective decision making.

How to start your documentation

To start, you could sit down with your program or service team and other decision makers to discuss how you are changing your program or service implementation. Update any existing implementation and evaluation plans and record the new actions you have committed to, the resources required, who is responsible for making these changes and when they need to be completed. Consider whether the existing data collections can still be used and how they might be affected by the current situation.

Make sure you are clear on any reporting or evaluation requirements that you might have for your program and service. Are you required to produce an evaluation report or communicate your program and service changes and impacts to particular stakeholders? What would this product look like and are there any key bits of data you need to collect or document to achieve this final product?

Document the new why, what, who, how and when

This template aims to help you step through a process for documenting program or service adaptations. It is intended to help with documenting changes for the purpose of ongoing evaluation and monitoring but can also be used for more general documentation of service changes. This simple aid is meant to act as a prompt for your thinking and should not limit you from documenting specific elements that may be relevant for your program and service.

You do not need to complete all sections of this template. You may want to adapt it, removing or adding questions to capture your unique program, service offering or context of practice. The first question provides an example answer to help guide your thinking.

Next steps

After you have completed the template, discuss your responses with your colleagues and decide when to revisit this documentation to monitor your progress. This discussion can also be used to ensure that everyone is clear on their tasks and the time frames for completion. The document can also be used for future planning, evaluation and monitoring so store it appropriately so it can be revisited when needed.

Additional resources from AIFS Evidence and Evaluation Support

• Program planning and evaluation guide
• Implementation in action: A guide to implementing evidence-informed programs and practices
• Planning for evaluation I: Basic principles

Need help with a program plan or evaluation? If you are funded under the Families and Children (FaC) Activity, AIFS can provide you with time-limited support for tasks such as developing a program logic or preparing for an evaluation. Contact AIFS Evidence and Evaluation Support for free advice.

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