[Dominique Maidment]

Hi Miho,
These are great questions, thanks! I’d be really interested to hear others’ thoughts about these. A couple of suggestions from me:

Facilitators: This is my personal opinion and not necessarily the official position of the Collaborative – I think it’s important we recognise that facilitating a transformative process, that leads to changes in norms and behaviour, is a skilled role and should be compensated as such. This is (another!) area for education of our donors. As we noted in the session, the most effective facilitators have gender-equitable and non-violent attitudes at the start – so I’m not sure it’s appropriate to have facilitators who are appointed and obliged to run sessions, without regard for their values and skills.

That leaves us with a recruitment challenge! This isn’t comprehensive but I would aim to:
– Provide fair compensation for facilitators; and ensure other ways for them to be recognised (depending on context this could be providing t-shirts, programme ID cards/ lanyards, training certificates and ceremonies, etc)
– Make sure that the programme is framed positively and focused on the benefits of change, rather than the behaviour we want to end (e.g. talk about ‘promoting healthy family relationships’ rather than ‘preventing violence’)
– Have programme staff do lots of introductory sessions in the community so the programme is well-understood
– Invite potential facilitators to a participatory workshop where they can get a taster of some programme activities and reflect on their own values
– If the facilitators who are recruited are at the start of their own transformative journey, then they will need more time and more opportunities for critical reflection themselves before starting to work in communities. This will require that enough programme staff to support new facilitators, and perhaps setting up WhatsApp groups or other ways for facilitators to support each other.

Prevention programming where services are inadequate: this is another really difficult one! I’m not sure we have reached consensus in the field about how to handle this, and we are asking the Evidence team to look for some specific resources. If prevention programming is going ahead, it’s important to pay particular attention to: safety planning; minimising the risk of backlash, and training facilitators and programme staff to handle disclosures appropriately.

Again, I’d love to hear others’ thoughts about these!

[Dominique Maidment]

Hi Safiya,

Just to add to what Sherri has said above: ideally if you are doing a baseline, it will be complete by the end of the inception phase. However, we are not always working in an ideal situation! You may have to do the baseline data collection as your very first implementation phase activity, if the inception phase is shorter. The really key point is that the baseline data collection should be complete before the programme activities begin – we don’t want to start creating change in communities before gathering that data. Even then, you will likely do some basic information sessions in the community before the baseline data collection, as part of your relationship building – this is fine and very unlikely to affect your results.

Thanks for the feedback on the exercise last week! We enjoyed it too and we’re thinking about how we can include more similar types of exercise through the course (suggestions very welcome!)

[Dominique Maidment]

Hi Everyone, it’s great to see you all here! I’m Dominique, Senior Associate with Prevention Collaborative, and I’ll be facilitating the How to Succeed course along with Collaborative colleagues. I’m originally from the UK and now based in Thailand. I’ve been working in development and humanitarian contexts in Asia and the Pacific for the past 20 years, and focusing on VAW and prevention of VAW for the last decade.

If you have any questions or technical difficulties as you prepare for the course start on Wednesday 26th May, please go ahead and email me at [email protected] , and feel free to join us for the optional Q&A on Monday (register here )

I’m really looking forward to sharing this very first live course from the Collaborative, and to learning from you all!

[Author]

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