Carmen Lau
Professional Background
Carmen works across FPC's social impact and systems change projects, with a current focus on gendered violence prevention and advocacy impact. Carmen brings eight years of evaluation and social research experience spanning consultancy and the community services sector.
Before joining FPC, Carmen was the Evidence, Evaluation and Learning Specialist at Launch Housing, where they led the 2026 Insights Paper and other evaluations. Prior to that, she was a Senior Research Officer at Drummond Street Services' Centre for Family Research and Evaluation, leading projects with LGBTIQA+ communities, CALD communities, young people, and people using and experiencing family violence.
Carmen began her career at Litmus, a research and evaluation consultancy in Wellington. They undertook many multi-year and multi-site government-funded projects, strongly underpinned by an equity and Te Tiriti o Waitangi lens.
Approach to Evaluation
Carmen's practice is grounded in social justice and intersectionality. She believes in the importance of building relationships and strives to centre lived experience in her work. Carmen pays close attention to how findings are used and can contribute to equitable outcomes for marginalised communities.
Areas of Expertise
Carmen's expertise sits at the intersection of evaluation, social research and community engagement. Her strengths are in qualitative and mixed-methods work with communities whose voices are often under-represented in evaluation, and in translating what she hears into insights and recommendations that organisations can act on.
Specialist Expertise
- Evaluation Approaches: Experience across cultural, developmental, process, outcomes and utilisation-focused evaluation, applied to government policy, community programs and organisational initiatives
- Community Engagement and Consultation: Extensive experience engaging Māori, Pasifika, LGBTIQA+ and CALD communities, people with disability, and people with diverse and multiple lived experiences
- Qualitative and Mixed Methods: More than 300 interviews and around 40 focus groups, alongside surveys, document and literature review, and observation, analysed using tools including NVivo and Dedoose
- Systems and Advocacy Impact: Applying systems and advocacy lenses to evaluation, including participatory systems mapping and Ripple Effects Mapping to trace the influence of prevention and advocacy work
- Stakeholder Engagement: Working with government, organisational leadership, management and service providers to design and deliver research that fits the decisions they need to make
- Capability Building: Training and mentoring staff in interviewing, facilitation and analysis, and supporting teams to conduct their own service reviews
- Reporting and Communication: Written and visual reports and presentations built around insights and recommendations, including published government evaluations
Selected Projects
At FPC, Carmen is currently working on systems-informed projects in gendered violence prevention and advocacy impact. Her previous work spans homelessness and housing policy, family violence, LGBTIQA+ health and inclusion, and public sector programs in Aotearoa New Zealand, with several evaluations published by government commissioners.
Systemic Drivers of Gendered Violence Prevention in Regional Victoria
Gendered violence prevention in regional Victoria operates across a complex network of organisations, settings and system conditions. Building on a statewide participatory systems mapping process led by Respect Victoria in 2024, FPC is working with leaders, managers and practitioners across two workshops in Wangaratta and Shepparton to map the factors influencing prevention impact, and then use the finalised map to develop middle-range theories of systems change: structured, testable statements of where prevention effort should focus, what it needs to influence, and what success would look like. Findings will be reported to WHGNE and participants and submitted for peer-reviewed publication.
Ripple Effects Mapping to Demonstrate Advocacy Impact
54 Reasons is implementing longitudinal Ripple Effects Mapping (REM) to understand and measure the impact of its advocacy work, both to build an evidence base and to create a practical learning tool for leaders across the organisation. FPC is leading implementation through a worked example interview, two SMT workshops, approximately ten leader interviews across state and national levels, and a sense-making session to develop an evidence and significance rubric. The maps are being developed digitally so they can be explored interactively, filtered by state, sector or significance of shift, and will establish a baseline for future rounds of REM.
Evaluation of Aotearoa New Zealand's National Homelessness Action Plan
Evaluation of New Zealand's national homelessness action plan, undertaken at Litmus. The evaluation assessed the implementation of the cross-agency action plan to inform future homelessness work, through a document review, 47 interviews, and 7 workshops.
Internal Evaluations at Drummond Street Services
Led and contributed to a suite of internal mixed-methods evaluations, including QHub (mental health and wellbeing supports for LGBTIQA+ young people in regional Victoria), the community connectors approach (LGBTIQA+ facilitators to codesign a family violence prevention approach), BeSure (affirmative consent workshops for CALD young people) and Living Free from Violence (a group program for women, trans and gender diverse people in prisons).
Whole-of-System Response to Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder
Two-phased research project examining the whole-of-system response (health and disability, education, child protection, youth justice) for children, young people and families living with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. The research involved a policy review, 114 interviews with practitioners and staff across relevant sectors, and interviews with families and young people.
Education & Qualifications
Carmen's academic background is in psychology, with a Master of Science from Victoria University of Wellington.
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Master of Science (Psychology)
Victoria University of Wellington
Postgraduate research training in psychological and social research methods, quantitative and qualitative analysis, and research design. -
Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Psychology
The University of Auckland
Honours-level research experience including studies on media, emotion and behaviour change, and on attitudes and prejudice. -
Bachelor of Arts (Psychology and English)
The University of Auckland
Foundation in psychology combined with the analytical and writing skills of an English major.
Professional Development and Skills
- Research Design: Designing and scoping evaluations and social research, including developing research and evaluation plans and navigating ethics processes
- Qualitative and Quantitative Research: Interviewing, focus group facilitation, survey design and analysis, document and literature review, and observation
- Analysis Tools: NVivo, Dedoose, Qualtrics, SurveyMonkey, Snapforms and Microsoft Office 365
Professional Experience
- Consultant - First Person Consulting (current)
- Evidence, Evaluation and Learning Specialist - Launch Housing (2026)
- Senior Research Officer / Research Officer - Centre for Family Research and Evaluation, Drummond Street Services (2025-2026)
- Senior Researcher/Evaluator / Researcher/Evaluator - Litmus, Wellington (2018-2023)
Research Interests and Focus Areas
- Gendered and Family Violence: Prevention, response and the systems that shape what practitioners can achieve
- Housing and Homelessness: Housing First, assertive outreach and the specialist homelessness sector
- LGBTIQA+ Inclusion: Programs and organisational practice for LGBTIQA+ communities, particularly young people and regional communities
- Culturally Responsive Practice: Research and evaluation with Māori, Pasifika and CALD communities
- Advocacy and Systems Change: Understanding how advocacy and prevention efforts ripple through organisations and systems
Key Contributions and Expertise
- Involvement across all stages of more than 30 research and evaluation projects, from scoping to reporting
- Published government evaluations in homelessness, health and maritime safety
- Coordination of interdisciplinary teams including Māori, Pacific and CALD evaluators, statisticians and human-centred designers
- Training and mentoring of staff and practitioners in interviewing, facilitation and analysis
Professional Commitment
- Bringing an intersectional, cultural and social justice lens to evaluation practice
- Ensuring communities with lived experience are heard and represented in research that affects them
- Supporting organisations to learn from and improve their own services
- Producing findings that are useful for decision-makers, practitioners and the communities they serve