What is Local Response

This is the starting point for the programme ‘A way to accompany Local Response.’ In this programme, you will join 2 other participants to experience how the Constellation accompanies Local Response.

The experience of the Constellation over 11 years and more than 60 countries is that communities can and do respond to the challenges that they face when they take ownership of those challenges. In the Constellation, we seek to accompany the community as it takes the path to ownership of their challenge.

We call this path Local Response and we call the methodology that they use the Community Life Competence Process (CLCP). We accompany the community as it applies CLCP with an approach that we characterise with the acronym SALT.

Here is our starting point:

Communities change themselves.

We do not change communities.

This is not a glib truism. It is a design principle. It is embedded in everything that we do.

The change that we own is sustainable change. When a community takes ownership of the challenge that it faces, it is on the road to sustainable change.

Our Path to Ownership

In the process which we use (CLCP) and the way in which we use it (SALT), we accompany the community as it:

• takes action based on its strengths to realise its dream.
• learns from its experience on its journey to its dream.
• inspires others, and is inspired by others, when it connects to learn to share.

How we support ownership

This is the role of the Constellation as it accompanies the community on its path to ownership:

• we develop and nurture the capacity to facilitate community discussion, reflection, learning and action.
• we accompany communities on their journey to their dream.
• we connect communities to their peers locally, regionally, nationally and globally.

Our methodology

The Community Life Competence Process (CLCP) is a form of Learning Cycle where a community takes action and learns from its experience. That learning becomes the basis for another round of action and learning. The cycle goes on indefinitely: there is no end point.

The steps of the learning cycle allow a community to divide an apparently insurmountable challenge into a set of specific and manageable steps. While we consider CLCP to be an effective implementation of the Learning Cycle, our experience tells us that on its own it would not consistently open the door to change. In addition, we support communities as they apply CLCP with an approach characterised by the acronym SALT. SALT is an acronym for Support/Stimulate, Appreciate, Learn and Transfer.

SALT tries to capture a way of thinking about CLCP. SALT seeks to appreciate strengths. When we appreciate strengths, we recognise that people have the capacity to act and to recognise that they have acted successfully in the past. This says to communities that you are already on the learning cycle and here is how you can continue to improve your situation through CLCP. And the steady appreciation of strengths reinforces that recognition. SALT supports progress on the learning cycle in a variety of ways.

SALT kick starts the learning process and then it supports the community through the hard work, and the inevitable setbacks that lead to Life Competence. In SALT and CLCP we have a very beautiful and powerful combination.

This programme is an exploration of the CLCP and SALT.