Cara Stephenson
Bachelor of Arts } Bachelor of Health Sciences | Master of Public Health | Graduate Diploma of Human Nutrition
Senior Consultant

• Bio
• Recent projects
• Qualifications

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Cara has qualifications and experience in public health, nutrition and international development. She is passionate about health promotion, migration, asylum seeker and refugee rights, and sustainable development practices. Through her studies and work in international development, Cara has worked with many diverse stakeholders. She has experience in both monitoring and evaluation within organisations and as an external evaluator. This lens from both within projects and from the outside has helped Cara empathise with clients and better understand the perspectives they bring to evaluations. This has further motivated Cara to make evaluations practical and useful for all stakeholders.

In her spare time, Cara is either chasing her young son around or supporting the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre’s impact team to develop appropriate monitoring and evaluation tools and frameworks to support their various projects.
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Prior employment
Prior to joining First Person Consulting, Cara worked in monitoring and evaluation roles in the international development sector for six years, most recently working with Swiss Red Cross in Lao PDR. During her work in Lao PDR, Cara led the Lao component of Swiss Red Cross’ Implementation Research, a multi-country study exploring influences on decision making regarding women and their choice of place of birth, either home or health facility. This research was conducted using a backstopping approach, building the capacity of Lao government partners in conducting qualitative research and participatory analysis. 
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Previously, Cara has worked in Indonesia, Malawi and Uganda as the Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinator of various nutrition and agriculture projects with international non-government organisations.

Examples of Cara's project experience include:

• 2022-2024, Healthy Kids Advisors Evaluation, Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation
• 2022, LGBTIQ+ HOPE Evaluation, Thorne Harbour Health
• 2022, Health Project Impact Evaluation, Settlement Council of Australia
• 2022, Migrant Workers Centre Evaluation, Migrant Workers Centre
• 2021-2022, LDAT Impact Evaluation, Community Evaluation Support, and Testing Program Enhancements, Alcohol and Drug Foundation
• 2021-2023, Evaluation of the Community Engagement Program, Prevention Partnership Program and Strategic Partnership Program, Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation
• 2021-2023, Grit and Resilience Program, Rural City of Wangaratta
• 2021-2022, Strengthening Communities Pilot Project Evaluation, Alcohol and Drug Foundation
• 2021, My Smart Garden Program Evaluation, Moonee Valley City Council
• 2021, Reignite Geelong – Learning and Insights Project, Barwon Child, Youth and Family

Cara has a Bachelor of Health Sciences (Health Promotion) and Bachelor of Arts (International Relations) from Deakin University. She completed her Master of Public Health in 2014 at the University of Melbourne, with specialisations in Global Health and Health Program Evaluation. During this Master of Public Health, she completed a research project exploring the effectiveness and acceptability of various cervical cancer screening methods. Cara recently completed a Graduate Diploma of Human Nutrition at Deakin University.