<p style="text-align:center"><em><span style="font-size:12px">Official opening of AES Conference at The Hyatt Hotel in Perth featuring welcome to country by Shaun Nannup of Nyoongar</span></em></p>

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<p>The AES Conference is an annual conference hosted by New Zealand and Australia. This year&rsquo;s theme, &lsquo;Landscapes&rsquo; was a platform to reflect on what diversity and change in social, organisational, environmental, political and economic landscapes means for evaluation and evaluators.</p>

<p><a href="http://conference2016.aes.asn.au" target="_blank">Further AES Conference information is available here</a>.</p>

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<p><img alt="AES Conference 2016, Perth, Australia" src="/uploads/images/ces-conf-perth-2016-2.jpg" style="float:right; height:350px; margin-left:15px; margin-right:15px; width:193px" />Dr Amohia Boulton, Lynley Cvitanovic and Gill Potaka-Osborne (Whakauae Research for M&#257;ori Health and Development) along with Maaki Tuatini (Te Puawai o Te Ahi Kaa Evaluation Project, Raetihi) attended the Conference in Perth. Dr Boulton is an AES board member and Maaki Tuatini was a recipient of this year&rsquo;s AES Conference Support Grants awarded to emerging Indigenous evaluators. This enabled Maaki to take part both in the Conference itself and in the series of pre-Conference workshops that were held at the Metro Hotel Perth. &nbsp;Maaki benefited from a workshop entitled Collaborative Outcomes reporting (COR): A participatory Impact evaluation approach with Jess Dart and Zazie Tolmer.</p>

<p>On the first day of the Conference, Gill, Lynley and Maaki co-presented a session entitled &ldquo;<em>Outside the box- but kinda in the box</em>&rdquo;. This gave Gill, Lynley and Maaki an opportunity to report on methods used in the Te Puawai o te Ahi Kaa Evaluation project. This presentation included views from both the evaluators and those being evaluated.</p>

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<p>On the second day, Dr Boulton presented a session entitled &ldquo;<em>The Strengthening Evaluation Practices and Strategies (STEPS) in Indigenous settings in Australia and New Zealand Project: Next &lsquo;steps&rsquo; in the journey</em>&rdquo;. She was supported by Sharon Clarke and Lynley Cvitanovic, the former an aboriginal colleague from Adelaide who works in Indigenous communities and the latter a research colleague from Whakauae Research Services. The session gave Dr Boulton the opportunity to build on previous work such as the development of a draft set of principles (presented at AES 2014) and construction of a dynamic conceptual framework (presented at AES 2015). Dr Boulton described a concept mapping process where Indigenous and non-Indigenous evaluators and community members from Australia and New Zealand brainstormed strategies for undertaking culturally safe evaluation. Findings from these concept maps will be used to develop strategies to enhance culturally competent and safe evaluation. On the final day Dr Boulton and Ms Cvitanovic conducted a 30-minute workshop/session? where participants were invited to take part in a rating activity of the concept mapping process. These activities will be used to advance the Indigenous evaluation agenda of AES.</p>

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<p><img alt="" src="/uploads/images/ces-conf-perth-2016-3.jpg" style="height:278px; width:400px" /><br />
<span style="font-size:12px"><em>Dr Amohia Boulton and Sharon Clarke at the Newcomers breakfast.</em></span></p>

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<p>During the Conference those new to the conference and evaluation were invited to attend a breakfast. These enabled conference grant recipients of and other first timers to meet, greet and forge new evaluation relationships.</p>

<p>An Awards for Excellence Gala Dinner was held to recognise exemplary evaluation practice, evaluation systems or evaluation capacity building in Australasia (Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Pacifica). &nbsp;These annual awards provide significant peer recognition for leading evaluators, leading evaluations and evaluation best practice. In addition, there was an official presentation of the Conference grants by Sharon Clarke.</p>

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<p><img alt="" src="/uploads/images/ces-conf-perth-2016-4.jpg" style="height:266px; width:400px" /><br />
<em><span style="font-size:12px">Dr Amohia Boulton and Sharon Clarke with the AES 2016 Conference Support recipients.</span></em></p>

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<p>Taking part in conferences such as that convened by AES is a great opportunity for building new networks and reconnecting with old ones. Such conferences provide a showcase for innovative ideas and methods that challenge and make us think about our own evaluation practice.</p>

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