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Evaluating the work of a community café in a town in the South East of England: reflections on methods, process and results

British Heart Foundation Health Promotion Research Group, Department of Public Health, University of Oxford, Institute of Health Sciences, Oxford OX3 7LF

Annette Boaz

Warwick Business School, University of Warwick

Elizabeth Dowler

Public Human Nutrition Unit, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Jane Meyrick

Health Education Authority, London

Mike Rayner

British Heart Foundation Health Promotion Research Group, Department of Public Health, University of Oxford, Institute of Health Sciences, Oxford OX3 7LF

This paper presents the results of an evaluation of a community café. The evaluation focused on whether the café met its own aims. It involved short structured interviews with 115 customers of the café, in-depth interviews with customers and volunteer staff, and a focus group with all those involved in the day-to-day running of the café. The evaluation showed that the café achieved its aim of providing a meeting place for people who lived locally. The research could not determine whether the café was successful in its aim of providing cheap, good-quality food because of difficulties in defining the term 'quality'. This paper also reflects upon the process of negotiating and carrying out an evaluation of the café over a nine-month period. It describes the difficulties in defining the aims of a community café and of negotiating shared aims for an evaluation. This evaluation forms part of a larger research project involving three community cafés in a town in the South East of England, which aims to contribute to the development of appropriate research methods for the evaluation of community-based initiatives which are likely to have an impact on health.

Key Words: community café • evaluation • community development • food and nutrition

Health Education Journal, Vol. 58, No. 4, 341-354 (1999)
DOI: 10.1177/001789699905800405


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