How the Triad programme works

In this programme, you are going to join with 2 other people to form a small group that we call a Triad. There will be a coach who will accompany the triad as you work through the programme. It is probable that the 3 members of the triad and the coach will be in different countries and all of your contacts will be through the Internet (Skype, forums or e-mail).

The basis of the programme is Local Response. Our starting point is that communities can respond to the challenges that they face. In this context, a community is any group of individuals that has a shared objective. You and your colleagues in the triad will create for yourselves a shared objective. You can read more about our idea of Local Response in the sub-page 'What is Local Response?'

In the programme, we will introduce you to the Community Life Competence Process (CLCP) that a community can use to make its response to the challenge that it faces more effective. You will also learn how a facilitator can accompany the community with a mindset for which we use the acronym SALT as it applies CLCP. You will hear a lot more about CLCP and SALT during the programme.

In this programme, we will not be teaching you in the sense that we are the teacher and you are the student. A foundation of Local Response is that individuals and groups can learn from their experience and the experience of their peers. In this programme, you will do exactly that. You will learn from your own experience. You will share your experiences in your triad. And you will be able to learn from the experiences of many other people who have had experience of CLCP and SALT around the world. In all of this you will be helped, guided and supported by your coach.

The structure of the Triad Programme

In this programme, you will act as a facilitator to a group as it works through the Community Life Competence process (CLCP). By the time you join this programme, you will have discussed this with your coach and you will be clear about the group that you will accompany.

Also in the programme, your Triad will form a team and your shared objective will be to support each other as you go through your programme and as you continue to apply CLCP when you have finished the programme.

There are 6 modules in the programme. The first module introduces the idea of SALT and of a SALT visit to a community. The next five modules work through the steps in the Community Life Competence Process (CLCP). In each module, there is a modest amount of material to read and exercises to complete, there is a SALT visit to the community where you facilitate the step in the process and there is a Skype call with your triad and your coach.

This is the structure of a module:

• The module starts with a short introduction which lets you know what the module is about and how it fits into the rest of the programme.
• There is a set of readings based on the experiences of members of the Constellation.
• There is a set of exercises that will ask you to reflect on your own experiences and the experiences that you have just read about. You will share your thoughts with your colleagues in the triad and you will be able to support them in their reflection.
• You will go through the step in CLCP that you have been working on with your Triad in a Skype call.
• You will then facilitate this step in CLCP with your community.
• You will then have a Triad Skype call with your coach to reflect on the work that you have done on the current step in the process and to introduce you to the next step in the process.
• You reflect on your experiences in the module in the forum.

It is difficult to say how long this will take you. Each of us has our own way of doing things. But here are some guidelines.

• You will not be weighed down with reading. The introduction and the readings should not take more than 30 minutes.
• The exercises ask you to reflect on your experience and the experience of your peers and then to comment on the forum. Just how long this takes depends on your approach. Some people find themselves absorbed by the challenge and others can satisfy themselves in 30 minutes. It should not take more than one hour to work through the step in your Triad.
• It is difficult to say how long it will take to facilitate the step with your community. It would be unusual to do it in less than one hour.
• The Skype call with your coach will take 90 minutes.
• You will decide for yourself how much time you might wish to spend on reflection about your experiences in the module.