Keeping Afloat after the Floods: Engaged Evaluation of a School-Based Arts Project to Promote Recovery

Abstract

Arts-based interventions are well established in a variety of contexts, including disaster recovery. However, only few have been evaluated. This chapter outlines the impact of a digital stories project run by a not-for-profit professional arts production company in primary schools six months after a major flood event. It provides perspectives from teachers and other school staff as well as parents of the students who participated. The chapter highlights how the project contributed to the healing and recovery of students by helping them make sense of the flood events. Engaged evaluation contributes to community resilience through developing a community of practice for the purposes of evaluation and developing an evidence base for arts interventions, sharing resources and building local capacity.