Developing guiding principles with a community of neurodiverse individuals: An essential first step toward principles-focused evaluation

Leaders of organizations serving individuals with disabilities often view their work as rooted in core values. Michael Quinn Patton, a prominent evaluation expert, provides an opportunity to frame the development and evaluation of organizational endeavors around guiding principles or values in action. The following account illustrates how a principles-focused approach can meaningfully engage adults with disabilities in evaluation efforts, empowering individuals that are frequently excluded. We describe the process used to develop a set of guiding principles for Adaptations, a non-residential community serving neurodiverse adults at the Jack and Shirley Silver Center for Diverse Abilities. This six-month evaluation technical assistance project was designed to explore how Adaptations might approach evaluation in a manner that aligns with its core values of belonging, inclusion, and self-determination. To inform the development of Adaptations' six guiding principles, we orchestrated a day-long workshop with a cross-section of community members. The principles subsequently informed the organization’s internal data collection efforts. The article concludes with reflections on lessons learned, including the value of approaching this effort with a co-learning lens and engaging community members in identifying guiding principles for future use in principles-focused evaluation.