CLN – Home

Community Learning Network Guides MC-D Evaluation

The Community Learning Network is the evaluation and learning arm of Making Connections – Denver. All Making Connections sites have a Local Learning Partnership whose role is to guide evaluation to capture the lessons learned from the initiative. Denver’s Community Learning Network (CLN) is distinctive because it is resident-driven and actively engages residents in the process.

In Denver, residents work as researchers alongside academics, organizations and staff. Giving people from the neighborhood a role in guiding research questions improves the quality of questions because they can be viewed from the resident perspective. Such involvement also empowers the residents because they are helping to shape the study, not just be the target of evaluation. This is significant because low income people are frequently studied and surveys can be seen as an intrusion.

The links below provide more information on the Community Learning Network and its projects:

• Who We Are – An Overview of CLN and its priorities
• 100 Family Study – Description of the multi-year evaluation that tracks families involved in at least two Making Connections-Denver activities to see how this involvement affects their lives
• Making Connections Cross-Site Surveys – Survey results gathered in Denver and the other nine Making Connections sites including demographics and attitudes. A progress report on the Residents Engaged & Connected core result was measured in the second wave of the survey.
• Community Research Team – The role of the team, names of members and a description of its activities