CLCP and SALT

“Who are we?” is the first step in the journey that is the Community Life Competence Process. It is the preliminary step before the start of the learning cycle. At one level the purpose of this first step is for the community to get to know each other and to understand why it is making the journey. At another level, the purpose is to create and to hold a space of trust where members of the community can express themselves freely, share and connect to each other through their strengths, vulnerabilities and concerns. The role of the facilitator is to generate this atmosphere of trust and confidence that allows people to connect as human beings. The facilitator works:

• • to create a safe space that allows members of the group to recognise their own strengths and the strength of their colleagues..

  • to stimulate each member of the group to express themselves.

  • to reveal the shared concern that brings the group together and to raise awareness that it is important to take action together.

All communities are unique. Sometimes they are clear about their challenge and are ready to begin. Sometimes, they are much less clear about their challenge and the extent to which it is a shared challenge. Our experience has shown that it is essential to create a solid “WE”, if the community is to take ownership of their challenge and to take action.

4. Step 2 of CLCP: Where do we want to go? “Building the Shared Dream.”

We have introduced the idea that the CLCP is a like a journey. In the first step, the community gets to know each other and to understand why it is making the journey. In the second step in the process, the community describes its destination. The tool that we use to define our destination is called 'Building the dream'. During this step, the community describes a world where it deals with the challenge as part of its day-to-day activity. It is not a world where everything is perfect, but one where the community is competent to deal with all aspects of the challenge.

There are some very practical reasons to describe a destination. One reason to think about a destination is to give us confidence that we are moving in the right direction. When we are busy, it is easy to lose sight of our destination. Another reason is to motivate ourselves. During this journey there will be times when we feel discouraged. Our destination helps us to keep going at these times.

However, for many communities we have found that the creation of a dream is of much deeper significance. Many of us are so busy with the problems of today that we never give ourselves the space or the time to dream about what is possible for us. Many of us never recognise that it is possible to create a better world for ourselves, our families and our communities. When we recognise that possibility, then we can begin to contemplate action. That action may seem challenging and daunting, but that possibility opens the door to action.

We place great emphasis on the creation of a shared dream. This quotation (from Dom Helder Camara) is the best explanation for our enthusiasm: “When we dream alone, it is only a dream. When we are dreaming with others, it is the beginning of reality.” We have been privileged to see this transformation many times now, but each time it is magical. Individuals see that their personal dream is shared with others and this leads to the possibility of action.

In the next step, the community discusses the skills that it will need to reach the dream.

5. Step 3 of CLCP: What skills do we need to get there? “Surfacing the Practices.”

When we build our shared dream we decide where we want to be and what it will be like to be there. This is not a world that is free from all problems. It is a world where we are able to deal with the challenges that we have to face. We can now look at this description of the world in which we wish to live and ask ourselves what are the skills and talents that we will need to get us there and to keep us there. At this step, the role of the facilitator is to help the community to move from the world of the shared dream to a set of specific actions that the community will use to move them towards their dream. In CLCP, we call these actions ‘practices’.

The first important thing to remember is that a practice is something that we do. It is very helpful for a practice to begin with “We” and then have a verb.

For example, “We maintain personal hygiene” is a useful practice because the village can ask themselves “What do we need to do to maintain personal hygiene?” and the conversation begins. “We plan our families” is a useful practice because the community can ask themselves what they are going to do in order to plan their families.

However, “All, including men, play a key role in immunization and other child health issues” does not lead naturally to a question that the community can discuss. If the community sees this as a practice, then the facilitator could explore a little further to help the village to explore what the concern that sits inside this practice.

The second important thing to remember is that the practices must come from the community. These practices belong to the community and will link to their shared dream. They are not practices that are brought to the community from some experts far away. The facilitator must not bring a set of practices which the community should or must use. This way may take a little longer but it is worth the time and the effort for the community to own these practices.

After the community has worked to surface their practices, it is perfectly fine for the facilitator to show the community the set of practices that other communities nearby has chosen. The facilitator can show the practices that a neighbouring village thought were relevant to their shared dream and ask if there are any that are relevant to them. The community might update some of those practices or they may decide to add practices.

6. Step 4 of CLCP: Where are we now? “Self Assessment.”

In this step in the process, the challenge for the community is to understand its current position. In The Constellation, we use a tool called the Self Assessment to get a good understanding of our current position with respect to our challenge. When we understand where we are now and where we want to be, we can think about the action that we can take that will move us in the right direction.

The important thing about a Self Assessment is that it is a SELF Assessment. This is not about an expert who comes from outside to assess the community and advise it of its weaknesses and its strengths.

Nobody knows more about a community than its members. A community is usually well aware of its weaknesses. More often, what is missing is a discussion of the challenges by the whole community. The Self Assessment opens up the possibility of a communal discussion and the challenge for the facilitation team is to support the community as it goes through that discussion.

The Self Assessment framework invites the community to assess itself on the set of practices defined by the community from Level 1 to Level 5 where Level 1 indicates a low level of competence and Level 5 indicates a high level of competence.

While it is very easy to get caught up in the details of the Self Assessment, it is important to understand that it is a tool that allows members of the community to discuss their different understanding of their situation. The facilitator challenges members of the community to explain why one part of the community thinks the community is at Level 1 and while another part thinks they are Level 5. Out of that discussion, the community begins to understand their situation better. And most importantly, from the deeper understanding of their situation comes the possibility of agreed action to move forwards.

7. Step 5 of CLCP: What are we going to do? “Action Plan.”

Now that the community is clear about where it wants to be and where it is now, it can make a plan for the journey, or at least the first steps in a long journey, with some confidence that it will be moving in the right direction. At this stage it is easy for the community to be overwhelmed by the gap between where it is now and where it wants to be. There may be so many things to do that it ends up by doing nothing. The facilitator needs to help them to think carefully about what they will do so that they can have a sense of progress in a relatively short time.

The community chooses 3 priority practices where it feels that it can make some progress in a short time. The conversation during the Self Assessment is usually a good guide to the areas where they can make progress. For each of the 3 priority practices, the community defines in one sentence how it sees itself at its current level and where it will be after it has carried out the Action Plan.

If there is a lesson to be learned from the experience of The Constellation and its members, it is that communities are very different in how they wish to plan their activities. Some groups wish to plan their activities in minute detail, while others are content to make very basic plans with little detail.

Why do we need an Action Plan?

When we write a plan, it is much more likely that we will take action

What should we have in our Action Plan?

We are all different. Some of us like short plans. Some of us like long plans. The only purpose of a plan is to reach your target. Here are some suggestions for what can go into your plan.

All the work has been for this. There is an Action Plan and the challenge for the community is to take the actions in the Action Plan. This may sound simple, but it isn’t. There will always be good reasons not to do something now. People will always find other tasks are more important. It is at this stage that everybody involved in the process should remind themselves of the idea of SALT.

We need to Support each other.

We need to Appreciate the strengths of others and their own strengths.

We need to Learn from each other.

We need to Trust each other.

This is the responsibility of everybody in the community who cares about the plan. But, it is the particular responsibility of the facilitator. The community must own the actions that they take: the facilitator must support them as they take those actions.

In particular, the facilitator may need to work with the community to think about what they need to do in order to understand the impact of the actions that they have taken. If they have held a meeting, how many people attended. If they have organised some training, did those who attend it find it useful and have they used what they have learned.

But most of all, people who take action need to be supported and to be appreciated.

9. Step 7 of CLCP: Reflect: “Where did we get to? What did we learn? What can we share?”

Now is the time for the community to look back over the journey that they have made together. One good reason to do this is to celebrate the progress that we have made. During the year, it is easy to focus on the problems that we had with our Action Plan and to disregard the progress that we have made. So it is very worthwhile to stop, to recognise the progress that we have made and to celebrate that progress.

A review of our progress during the year is also a good starting point to decide where to go next.

What did we find easy?....perhaps we should do more next year.

What did we find difficult?....should we think about other ways to make progress?

When we reflect on our experiences and we learn from those experiences, we can make the next stage of the journey easier.

And a final reason to look back is to decide on the things that we could share with others so that they can benefit from our experiences. If we recognise that we can learn from our peers, then we must also recognise that others can benefit from our experience.

We have found that different groups approach this step in the process in their own way. Some go into lots of detail and some are content with much less detail. But there is one consistent message to come from communities that do this step successfully: you must look at the review as an introduction to the next cycle in the learning process. This is not the end of anything; it is the start in the next step in the process.

One lesson that the Constellation has learned is that things change. When we made our plans, we assumed that things would stay the same. Here is our problem and here is what we are going to do in order to deal with the problem. But sometimes the problem changes and sometimes there are other problems that arise. It is because things change that we need to stop and to reflect on the progress that we have made and the challenges that we still face.