What you will not find here and what you will find here
This is not a guide to the facilitation of a group as it builds a Self Assessment framework for a particular challenge in that it does not seek to cover general principles of facilitation. This note seeks to define the steps involved in building a Self Assessment framework and to give some specific hints and tips that we have found useful in facilitating this task.
Some ideas to bear in mind when you are building a Self Assessment framework
The Self Assessment framework is there to help groups to achieve their objectives. The most important reason for the group to use the framework is to stimulate discussion within its own context about the challenge that it faces. If it achieves this objective, then it does not matter if the practices are not entirely to everyone’s liking or that the wording is not exactly perfect.
So don’t spend endless hours worrying about the details. Get on and use it. If need be, you can change it later based on your experiences.
Some suggestions for the group that you bring together to create the Self Assessment framework
Perhaps the most important step in the whole process is to gather together a group of people who will build the framework. The challenge is to make sure that as many interests in the community as possible have a voice in building the framework so that everyone believes that they own the framework, that it is their framework. Needless to say, it is important that during the discussions that everyone present does have a voice and that their voice is heard.
It is also wise to get feedback on the initial efforts from as many people in the community as possible. The wider the ownership of the document the better. Once in the Gambia, we heard an old man declare proudly that this piece of paper was his bible. The piece of paper was a Self Assessment framework for malaria which had been worn away to almost nothing. That was true ownership and that is the ideal.
The Dream is the starting point for the Self Assessment framework
Our experience shows us that the exercise of ‘Building the Dream’ is an excellent point from which to start to build the Self Assessment. When a group has built its dream it has arrived at a picture of the world that it wants to create. It is not some never to be achieved state of perfection, but it is a world where dealing with the challenge has become a normal part of the life of the community.
The group can begin to surface the practices necessary to achieve the dream by asking itself some of the following questions:
From this discussion the practices that will help the group to reach the dream should come to the surface.
What makes a useful set of practices for a Self Assessment framework?
A practice is about DOING something and a good practice says what people need to do. Verbs are good. And sentences with a verb and an object are usually better. For almost anything that we do we need resources and a practice in almost any Self Assessment framework would be ‘Mobilise resources’.
How many practices should there be in a Self Assessment framework? There is no right answer to that question. You have to cover the important actions that you need to take to reach your dream, but remember that if you have lots of practices then it will take a long time to go through them and people can lose their enthusiasm and interest when faced with a seemingly endless list. If you have more than 20 practices then perhaps you should ask if some of the practices are more important than others. If there are less than 6 then perhaps you should ask if you have really covered all of the actions that you need to take to reach your dream.
Setting Level 5 for each practice
Once you are comfortable with your set of practices, you will need to define Level 5 for each practice. Level 5 defines the activities for the practice when you have reached your dream. So for the example of ‘Mobilising resources’, it describes how you mobilise resources when it has become simply the way that you do things when you can deal with the challenge that you face.
One very useful way to surface Level 5 is to ask people to discuss their experiences of mobilising resources in the past. If things worked well, how do you include that in the description of Level 5. If things didn’t work out too well, what could have been improved so that you would have been Level 5. The stories that are told in the discussions about Level 5 can be very useful for use when people consider actions that they can take to improve their performance.
In the Self Assessment framework for AIDS Competence, the definition of Level 5 for ‘Mobilising resources’ is ‘We continuously use our own resources and access other resources to achieve more, and have plans for the future’.
Setting Levels 1 to 4 for each practice
In the Constellation, we have found it useful to define the levels in a generic way. By this we mean that the levels are defined in a way that they apply to any practice. Over time we have used different generic definitions of levels and the diagram below shows the version that we currently use.
So there is a steady progression that moves from Level 1 where we know that there is a problem through to Level 5 where the necessary actions have simply become part of our everyday life.
These generic levels are usually enough to allow people to discuss their situation and to decide upon the level for a particular practice. It is also possible to create sentences for each level in each practice that reflect the generic level for the particular practice.