The Alberton Project Evaluation

The Alberton Project is a three-year community revitalisation program. It aims to achieve a confident, vibrant and energetic community exhibiting an outstanding lifestyle in the Yarram area. It seeks to reinvent the community's identity.

A Monash Rural Health team of Peter O'Meara, Janice Chesters and Gil-Soo Han have been contracted to monitor and evaluate the project over a three-year period. It aims to identify interventions and models of good practice that help fulfil the project aims. Multiple research methods have been employed, such as direct observation of the project, monitoring of the media, and plotting the project's boundaries. A distinctive feature of the approach is the adaptation of a health promotion model to develop a performance-monitoring framework for the community. The first-year evaluation report of the Alberton Project is reported with reference to the five domains of structure, community skills, resources, leadership and partnerships.

The project participants have used the first year of the project to develop a strong infrastructure that supports the current activities of the project. The challenge for the project is to build on the momentum that has been established, work towards making the project activities sustainable, and initiate creative strategies that will foster the problem solving capacity of the whole community.

For further information contact:

Janice Chesters, Monash University School of Rural Health