Follow-Up & Evaluation
Follow-Up
Consider how you will follow up smokers after No Smoking Day.
At your events, take details from smokers who come to you for advice and information and follow up a week later to see how they have done.
With this year's theme and the 'Can you last a week?' strapline, you might be able to give them support for those seven tough days.
You could also book people into local stop smoking services while they're at your stand.
Make sure to log everyone that you make contact with as a result of No Smoking Day, and record every quit attempt.
Evaluation
After your event, consider how well it went, what you achieved and what you would or wouldn't do again. Evaluation isn't all about statistics; it's also about making sure that your activities are effective in reaching the people you are trying to reach.
The focus for your evaluation will vary depending upon who the evaluation is for, whether it be your funders, colleagues, partners, or the participants.
However your evaluation efforts should go a long way in helping you to get the most out of No Smoking Day and ensuring you learn from your experiences.
Good, effective planning for a No Smoking Day activity is a necessity for your event to be a success; and good, effective planning means building in evaluation as you go.
Identify who your target audience is and what you hope to achieve with them, then measure how effective you were in your aims and objectives.
A meaningful evaluation report might include:
1. The planning
- Make a timetable of your expected activities
- Was the timetable realistic? Did you have to make any alterations?
- What were the views of those involved on how your plan went?
- What are the aims and objectives of your event? Try to make these as
measurable as you can.
2. The people involved
- List all the people and organisations you hoped would take part
- List all the people and organisations who took part in your work
- What function did they fulfill?
- Get their opinions after the event
3. The event
- Record details of venues, facilities and materials used
- How much material did you distribute at the event?
- Take photographs of the event
- Conduct an observation study of the target group's response
- Record the media coverage generated - words spoken, number of features written, number of words written, etc
4. Your target group
- State who your target group was
- Use surveys to find out how many you reached, if they knew it was No Smoking Day, if they took part/what action they took, etc
- Keep a note of how many people you spoke to yourself, how many leaflets you handed out, etc
Some ways of getting answers for your evaluation process may include:
- On the spot questionnaires - these need to be short and easy to complete, asking only for information that you will use. You can use multiple choice questions but be aware that these can limit answers.
- Informal feedback - encourage participants to express opinions in visitors books, graffiti walls, video boxes, etc
- Desk research - use materials distribution figures and contact records to estimate activity levels
- Follow up calls - evaluation phone calls can provide more detailed information
but are time consuming
Remember that No Smoking Day is a focus for raising awareness and support for smokers who want to quit and this should be backed up all year round.
The support provided for smokers should not stop at the end of the Day, so keep in contact and follow up smokers long after the day is over.
Use these tips to think about ways in which follow up support can be provided
to smokers who get involved in your No Smoking Day event:
- Collect contact details for smokers on the day and follow up with a phone call to check progress and offer encouragement after the day
- Arrange to book smokers into stop smoking services on the spot
- Bring smokers who got involved with your event back together a week or more afterwards to discuss progress
- If organisers are stop smoking service coordinators, have them ask smokers
who contact their service where they heard about it and monitor the effectiveness
of promotions and referrals on No Smoking Day.
If you do decide to produce an evaluation report, please send a copy to No Smoking Day. We love to see what people are doing at local level as without these activities there would be no Day.
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