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Building an
authentic
practice
in the field |
"You are the
sculptor and the clay"
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Download Application form with brochure
Purpose and
orientation
This
five-day course focuses on the core concepts, theories of change,
principles, strategies, methods and skills of a developmental
practice. The course provides a process for participants to understand
where the real work of facilitating development lies and what their
own personal development challenges are in developing as a
practitioner.
The course
is aimed at effecting, where needed, paradigm shifts around
understanding the nature of development and social change. This in
turn has implications for the purpose of development interventions,
explored in this course. From the purpose is then derived the
strategies, approaches and practice of development practitioners and
therefore of the competencies required of practitioners for effective
work in development.
CDRA is highly
critical of much that is done in the name of development. But
instead of rejecting the concept of development we are
committed to building a practice based on a particular
and quite distinct understanding of it. We see
development as an innate and ongoing life process to be
recognised, respected and worked with, to be unlocked and enhanced.
We do not see it as something that can be created or delivered
through projects designed from the outside. With this as a
fundamental orientation, we see a developmental practice as a
conscious, facilitative approach to social transformation. Effective
developmental practice respectfully accompanies and supports people
and their organisations, communities and movements, in their own
efforts to realise their aspirations,
make their choices and access
their fair share of resources. And in so doing
adding their contribution, more fully and equitably, to shaping an
interdependent world for present and future generations.
Who
should attend?
Aimed at
practitioners including field-staff, programme managers, directors and
donors. The presence of teams on this course adds enormous benefits,
enabling learnings and ideas to be grounded on the course and
encouraging a synergy between colleagues that adds value to
team-working back in the field.
Areas of focus
The course covers six core elements of a developmental practice
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Understanding development and theories of change
What is “development” and where is the real work of practitioners?
We introduce various paradigms which give rise to various approaches
to development. Participants are “introduced” to and explore their
own development as a primary source for learning about the
nature of social and individual change.
Three
kinds of change and needs for change are explored:
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Emergent change: unconsciously developing situations with
emerging needs and uncertain or shifting environments for change,
requiring processes aimed at step-by-step or continuous
improvement. (action-learning based change)
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Transformative change: complex processes of overt and
hidden crises and stucknesses in unstable internal or external
environments requiring deep shifts usually related to issues of
identity and power. (U-process of change)
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Projectable change: conscious change prompted by a
clear problem or need with relatively stable internal and external
environments enabling development projects to take hold.
(project-cycle managed change)
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Reading
context
How do we read contexts? What kinds of change are we being
challenged to work with in which contexts? To understand what the
world is asking of them as development practitioners in their own
global, regional and local contexts, participants work with a 3-fold
model which introduces the dynamics of political, economic and civil
society, how they interact and the challenges faced by practitioners
in working at the interfaces of these three.
Participants also look into the development sector itself as a
context and are asked why the "development industry" favours
project-cycle managed change despite the need for other approaches.
They explore the challenges of facilitating the development of
donors and other policy- and decision-makers to help them to
understand the realities of change and the implications for their
own practice.
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Purposes of development
Purpose is derived from the overlap of what the context wants from
the practice and what the practitioner or organisation wants to do.
Purpose (or vocation) gives direction, clarity and meaning. Tangible
and less tangible indicators of change are explored and how the
relationship between these two can answer important questions of
"sustainability" and measurement.
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Core
Processes.
The core processes of facilitating development are distilled into 5
elemental steps each of which is explored in some depth.
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Building relationships – for warmth, clarity, trust and
confidentiality;
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Gaining understanding – ways of seeing the visible and the
less visible, finding the real, underlying problems and trying to
identify the potential. Helping the client to see these for
themselves, achieving acceptance for change and planning further
process;
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Facilitating change – identifying, with the client, what kind
of change is required and accompanying them through the primary
stages of this change;
a)
Action-learning based approaches change
b) The
U-process of change
c)
Project-cycle managed change
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Supporting implementation – helping clients to put their ideas
into practice and to strengthen key capacities and relationships
for sustainability;
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Reviewing, re-contracting or exiting – learning from the
relationship and exploring future needs.
The role of planning, monitoring, evaluation and
reporting as integral to the core processes of facilitating change is
explored. This is particularly important as the “development industry”
has turned “monitoring and evaluation” into a specialist function and
robbed developmental practice in the field of these vitalising
elements.
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Strategies and approaches
The learners work through the biography of Strategy in the
development sector, tracing the development from relief and welfare
to various forms of capacity-building and development, advocacy and
other rights-based approaches, working with social movements and
integrated social development approaches.
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The
development of core competencies of a field practitioner
What are the basic competencies necessary to practice
developmentally and how do we continually develop these? Each
element of a developmental practice requires particular attitudes,
knowledge and skills. Several of these are strengthened or practiced
during the course whilst others are introduced for further
attention. A selection of some core competencies focused on during
the course:
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Building
relationships – trusting and human relationships are key as well
as clear boundaries and conditions
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Listening – paying attention to thoughts, feelings and the will
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Asking
good questions to gain deeper insights into the situation and the
people being worked with, as well as the importance of helping
people to find their own good questions
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Working
with the experiences of others – some key faculties and processes
to help people to learn from their own experience
Particular
attention is paid to the conscious and continuous own-development of
practitioners and practice, both individual and organisational, as the
key resource from which to understand how to facilitate the
development of others.
The Process
The course
is ideally run as a 5-day residential process for 24 participants
which enables full and committed focus and also provides a relaxed
social context within which fruitful learning relationships are
fostered. However, it can also be run non-residentially.
The
programme emphasises a participative, shared learning and creative
design. There are several interactive inputs which participants ground
into own experience and potential practice. The use of metaphor,
role-plays, artistic exercises and story-telling provide a good
balance and complement to the more thinking oriented processes of
learning.
The process
is informed by, and works actively with, the actual practices brought
by participants. Learning and development happens primarily through
reflection on own practice. A facilitated action learning approach is
used to ground course material in practice, and to form the basis for
further learning and improved practice.
These
defining characteristics of our approach to structured learning also
constitute the basis of our approach to social change and
intervention. They are reflected prominently in the design, content
and methodology of all our courses and are experienced tangibly by
those participating in the courses.
Learning Materials
Participants
are supplied with a course file containing an introductory set of
readings, exercises and tools. These materials will be of use for the
participants for further study, for use in the field and as resources
for self-guided team learning processes to assist with ongoing
development of practitioner teams.
This course can also be contracted to
be run in-house at negotiated rates.
Contact Pauline Solomons for application queries:
pauline@cdra.org.za
Contact Doug Reeler for curriculum details
doug@cdra.org.za
Download Application form with brochure
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