This page lists my current clients, commissions and projects, for research, evaluation, campaigning and networking.
As commissioned network/ organisation Research/ Evaluation Lead
GRIPP (Growing Rights Instead of Poverty Partnership)
● Commissioned network Research and Evaluation Lead (2024 – current)
GRIPP is a UK-wide network comprising several organisations working together to end poverty across the nations and regions of the UK.
funded by several bodies, including Civic Power Fund
More about GRIPP and my role
GRIPP (Growing Rights Instead of Poverty Partnership) comprises several organisations and networks (Amnesty UK, Just Fair, ATD Fourth World, Poverty Truth Commission, Thrive Teeside, The Bevan Foundation, and RAPAR) working together to end poverty across the nations and regions of the UK.
GRIPP holds that poverty is a human rights violation and that systemic poverty injustices must be challenged and ended on the basis of human rights. By bringing together lived/ing and learnt experiences of poverty and human rights, GRIPP aims to release knowledge and generate the power to drive real change by bringing people, groups and communities together, across the UK, to build a social movement.
I am the Research/ Evaluation Lead for GRIPP (since 2024), responsible for all aspects of research and evaluation of the partnership’s work, including evaluating rights-seeking movement building, campaigning, advocacy and activism, and process and impact outcomes of the partnership’s work in regional, national and international fora.
My approach to this work:
• participatory action research approaches
• techniques of co-creation and co-learning
• retrospective evaluation techniques
• narrative research methods
• a bespoke process and impact outcome framework (‘theory of change’)
• social movement, activism, participation and rights work theoretical frameworks
RAPAR (Refugee Asylum Participatory Action Research)
● Commissioned organisation Research and Evaluation Lead (2016 – current)
RAPAR is a human rights organisation based in Manchester, UK, working with displaced people for research, campaigning, and community development.
funded by several bodies, including Horizon 2020, Erasmus+, The National Lottery, Ben and Jerry’s/ Tides Foundation, and Lankelly Chase
More about RAPAR and my role
Established in 2001, RAPAR is a human rights organisation based in Manchester, UK, primarily concerned with displaced people and issues relating to displaced people. RAPAR’s focus is on research, campaigning and community development for rights in the UK’s hostile environment.
RAPAR’s research centres on exploring any issue important and relevant to our members, by centring the people who are affected by it, throughout the research process. Through our research, we focus on the living experience of discrimination, human rights violations, and systemic oppression experienced by the vast majority of our members. We work with other community, charity, and third-sector organisations, in community development, in public spaces, and with policy-makers.
We utilise our research to develop public-facing awareness-raising campaigns and to agitate for critical social change for people who have been displaced. We also conduct research ‘wrapped around’ campaigning work so that we are always ‘learning in action’.
I have been the Research/ Evaluation Lead for RAPAR for over 10 years, responsible for all aspects of research and evaluation of the organisations work, including researching/ evaluating rights-seeking movement building, campaigning, advocacy and activism, and process and impact outcomes of the organisations work in regional, national and international fora.
My approach to this work:
• participatory action research approaches
• techniques of co-creation and co-learning
• retrospective evaluation techniques
• narrative research methods
• a process and impact outcome framework (‘theory of change’, created by RAPAR)
• social movement, activism, participation and rights work theoretical frameworks
As commissioned Research Consultant
Tackling loneliness and isolation
Funded by HomeStart Kirklees/ National Lottery Community Fund
commissioned Jul. to Dec. 2025
Evaluating the Tackling Isolation and Loneliness (TIL) project
Tackling Isolation and Loneliness (TIL) is a National Lottery funded project in HomeStart Kirklees, which runs peer support groups to support families experiencing isolation, loneliness, and poor mental health—challenges significantly heightened by the Covid-19 pandemic. Many parents, particularly those with limited support networks or living in rural or deprived areas, continue to face barriers to connection and community engagement.
More about HomeStart’s project and my role
The TIL project offers a proven, blended model of support that includes:
- Weekly peer support group sessions in accessible community venues
- Tailored one-to-one support, delivered at home or remotely
- A co-produced programme of activities
- Flexible pathways that allow parents to move between support types
- Opportunities for parents to become peer supporters and volunteers
I am the commissioned research consultant for the TIL evaluation responsible for assessing the effectiveness and impact of HomeStart Kirklees’s support model; capturing the voices and lived experiences of beneficiaries, staff, volunteers and stakeholders; evaluating the cost-effectiveness of the intervention; identifying opportunities for scaling and sustainability; and providing actionable recommendations for future development.
My methodological approach for evaluating TIL:
- retrospective evaluation techniques, and case studies
- theory of change application and analysis
- cost-effectiveness analysis and fiscal estimation
Empowering Parent Champions
Funded by Save the Children UK
commissioned Jun. to Dec. 2025
Parent Champions’ Participatory Action Resarch: Longsight
‘Empowering Parent Champions’ is the second phase of a project working with Parent Champions in Longsight, Manchester, to carry out a Participatory Action Research (PAR) project that evolved from a co-designed project supporting a number of families, and local grassroots organisations and practitioners, to identify local issues and to find solutions to local problems—“If it matters to families, it matters to us”.
More about Save the Children’s project and my role
Eighty-seven percent of families in Longsight reached in SCUK’s Parental Voice innovation project that began the current work reported that a lack of childcare was a main barrier in accessing services. Phase 2 of the work involves the Parent Champions/ PAR Community Researchers who lead the work co-designing and carrying out research on their community’s parents’ experiences with childcare services/ accessing services, being unable to engage with education/ training because of issues with childcare,and the impacts of accessing childcare on parental wellbeing, especially for women.
As a PAR expert, I am the commissioned research consultant for the project responsible for supporting Parent Champions to carry out Phase 2’s PAR work for parents and with parents: developing data collection, conducting data collection and collating data, analysing data and presenting learning, preparing outputs and dissemination, and engaging in continuing ‘reflection in action’ throughout the work.
My methodological approach for ‘Empowering Parent Champions’:
- supporting PAR (Participatory Action Research) methods of research, reflection and action
- supporting co-creation, co-analysis and co-learning
- developing PAR outputs and dissemination
Compassion: drama project
Funded by the National Lottery Community Fund
awarded Apr. 2025 to Nov. 2026
‘Compassion’ in the UK’s ‘hostile environment’
This National Lottery (Arts for All) funded drama project brings together people seeking asylum or living as migrants and refugees—the most socially isolated—in the Greater Manchester Area to work together to identify, critique, depict, and mediate, the devastating toll the ‘hostile environment’ has on their well-being. Continuing RAPAR‘s long history of using drama as an awareness-raising, peer support, and therapeutic method, the drama group will expose, dramaturgically, how displaced people are deliberately fragmented and myriadly disadvantaged by the hostile environment, and endure significant struggles with mental health, anxiety and depression. By bringing displaced people together to co-create and perform, RAPAR will build strong communities of support, advocacy and resilience and promote strong community relationships and inclusion. By sharing experiences through performances in the community, we will develop potential, find common ground, and facilitate dialogue with the wider community, helping to overcome social/cultural barriers.
More about RAPAR and my role
Established in 2001, RAPAR (Refugee and Asylum Participatory Action Research) is a human rights organisation based in Manchester, UK, primarily concerned with displaced people and issues relating to displaced people. RAPAR’s focus is on research, campaigning and community development for rights in the UK’s hostile environment.
My methodological approach for ‘Compassion’:
- participatory action research approaches
- techniques of co-creation and co-learning
Empowering girls/ young women
Funded by WomenCentre/ National Lottery Community Fund
commissioned Dec. 2024 to Dec. 2026
Evaluating Project 1125
Project 1125 is WomenCentre’s project that works with girls and young women aged 11-25 years to overcome the challenges that are impacting their day-to-day lives.
More about WomenCentre’s Project 1125 and my role
WomenCentre provides holistic, ‘one-stop services’ in Kirklees and Calderdale, including emotional and practical support on issues such as debt, benefits, mental or physical health, and domestic violence, and provides counselling, training and development.
Following the National Lottery funded evaluation of Project 1325, which I conducted from 2017 to 2020, Project 1125 developed to work with girls and young women aged 11-25 years to overcome the challenges that are impacting their day-to-day lives. Project 1125 is also funded by the National Lottery.
I have been commissioned again by WomenCentre to conduct the evaluation of Project 1125, where I am responsible for evaluating process, progress, learning and impact (process and impact outcomes) in key areas of Project 1125 by ‘measuring’ and capturing the impact of the programme’s individual support for girls and young women, and assessing the process and impact of the girls and young women-led campaigning and partnership forums for girls and young women and policy- and decision-makers.
My methodological approach for Project 1125:
- participatory action research approaches
- techniques of co-creation and co-learning
- retrospective evaluation techniques, and case studies
- theory of change application and analysis
Dr Gráinne McMahon: Research Consultant, Academic Activist 