The growth in frequency and scale of disasters has stretched the capacity of the international community to respond.  Recognising the urgent need to expand this expertise, one of the world’s oldest and largest humanitarian organisations, Save the Children UK, has embarked upon an ambitious scheme to train and develop it’s own ‘surge capacity’ through the ground-breaking Emergency Operations Programme (EOP).

Solution

The Relief and Development Group were invited by Save the Children to lead the first ‘Real-Time Evaluation’ of the six-month intensive programme involving 26 staff. In a novel approach to the evaluation, an Impact consultant was embedded into the final Advanced Field Training (AFT) component of the EOP to act as live trainer, facilitator, observer and reviewer. The AFT is perhaps the most audacious aspect of the EOP– an eight-day live humanitarian scenario, simulating the rigours and challenges of responding to a real international disaster; from refugee management, mass casualty incidents, to complex logistical planning in a dynamic security environment. Its aim is to blend an intense training experience into a real-time tool for assessment, honing the team into one equipped for rapid deployment when the need arises. To conduct the evaluation successfully required a wide range of subtle approaches to produce an insightful, evidence based and rigorous account of the strengths and areas for development for the programme.

Result

The comprehensive recommendations that emerged considered every aspect from strategy to operations and have led to:

• Strengthening the programme in its ability to build an effective emergency operations capability
• Helping shape the programme into a standard bearer of excellence for the humanitarian sector
• Positioning the programme firmly at the heart of Save’s organisational leadership development strategy.

"The involvement of Impact in the AFT has been hugely valuable to us not only for the crucial professional insights and recommendations they were able to offer the training process and the programme as a whole, but also as their consultants bring such great energy and enthusiasm with them. It is uplifting and exciting to have them on board."

Gareth Owen
Deputy Director of Emergencies

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