This four-part webinar series explores how syringe services programs (SSPs) can use monitoring and evaluation (M&E) to better serve their clients and communities. M&E includes the collection, management, analysis, reporting, and use of program data to inform program planning and improve program efficiency and effectiveness. M&E can help SSPs better identify, respond to, and anticipate community needs; address gaps in service provision; and identify areas for growth. SSPs can also use M&E data to demonstrate their impact or address community concerns or opposition to harm reduction, which can be useful when applying for funding, strengthening community partnerships, or influencing local policies and regulations.

Each webinar in the series features speakers from SSPs across the country, who discuss their M&E systems including what data they do (and don’t) collect, how they collect it, how they use it, and how their findings are shared back with their clients and larger community. The series highlights diverse models for SSP M&E and how SSPs tailor their M&E systems based on their organizational structures, services, resources, goals, and communities.

The second webinar, State-Wide Models for SSP M&E, will be held Thursday, September 30th from 1:00 – 2:15 PM ET and will include speakers from the New Mexico State Department of Health and Michigan Department of Health and Human Services who will present an overview of their M&E systems, principles behind their system design, how state regulation or policy shaped their system, and successes and challenges they’ve faced collecting and analyzing statewide harm reduction systems.