This resource is to support project teams in structuring their regular meetings with animal owning community members/change agents so as to promote reflection and learning, generate motivation for change, support community members’ progress through the stages of change, and generate opportunities for peer-peer learning.
Keyword Search Tags
Project Phase:
Implementation Phase
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Development Approach, Community Engagement Approach
Behavioural Drivers (COM-B):
Capability, Motivation
Stages of Change:
Contemplation Stage, Preparation Stage, Action Stage, Maintenance Stage
Project Support: Facilitator Resources
Specific Topics: Community Change Agents
To maximize on the meetings with the community, the community change agents can follow the following ideas and adapt as they go along.
For meetings involving community change agents:
- Start the meeting with each person having a chance to talk about what is going well – this starts you out with a positive tone.
- Have people pair up and spend 5 mins each talking about 1) what goal they set for last period and status of achievement, and 2) about their experiences and critical learnings over the past month without being interrupted and without being given advice (This provides people a period to follow their own train of thought from beginning to end). Each person who listened must summarize interesting points to share with group when finished (1 minute summary, use timer for cut off) (good for promoting listening).
- Use the following questions to guide group discussion:
- What have you accomplished in the last month? / What’s happened since we last met regarding…
- What has worked for you in terms of motivating people to change their practices/adopt new behaviours?
- What is the status of your target peers? – Stage of change, what are they succeeding with – why?/where are they facing challenges - why?
- What things have you been asked that you don’t know answer to or have found challenging in carrying out your role?
- What support or knowledge/skills would support you in being able to address this?
- Where do you experience difficulties affecting change? - greet failure as an opportunity to build understanding, and focus on affirming the effort rather than the result
“If we consider failure to be unacceptable, then learning is not possible – and then failures will continue.”
- Ask for group input on how they have dealt with similar challenges successfully
- Discuss solutions to trial
- Negotiated behaviour change – what are things people are resistant to changing despite your/their best efforts? – why do you think this is?
- If no change is believed possible, discuss potential alternative behaviours that could be promoted/adopted instead to meet their animals’ welfare
- Discuss skills/capacity building need requests for next meeting – vote on priority
- After trainings - make action plan for applying lessons learned.
- In follow up meetings, reflect on the experience of applying previous training to address specific issues/challenges discussed, and
- Set action plan and goals for next month – can do as group and/or individually if different, ensuring they share back to group if done individuals.
The figure below provides key areas that the community facilitators can harness to engage the community and promote lasting behaviour change.
For meetings involving change agents + their peer groups:
- Start by asking for community members to share testimonials about their/others behaviour change experience. Consider focussing on sharing one or more of the following topics:
- RELATIVE ADVANTAGE: how advantageous/disadvantageous is new behaviour
- COMPATIBILITY: how is this ask/new behaviour compatible with personal or societal values and beliefs, availability of resources (time/fits w/in routing, money, equipment)
- COMPLEXITY: what is the level of real or perceived difficulty - how overcome?
- TESTABILITY or OBSERVABILITY: provide first-person experiences or first-hand knowledge/experiences have you observed
- Compare results of Animal welfare transect walk (T22) – highlight most significant change, no change – discuss why successful, why no change, and identify motivation/barriers to adoption if not known (consider brainstorming activity). If this tools is not used by all but other tools have been commonly used, alternatively depending on the specific welfare issues/owner’s behaviour they have been following up, compare results using that.
- Discuss solutions – what can people change, set new goals as group
- If no change is believed possible, discuss potential alternative behaviours that could be adopted instead to meet their animals’ welfare needs (refer to the five domains)
- Prioritize new indicators for action if some already addressed
- Individual changes – changes in level of awareness, attitudes, behaviour
- Societal level changes – aggregate changes, most significant change, less outbreaks of disease, infrastructure installed/improved/managed, collective actions
- Understand why successful or not – key questions
- How was info delivered when adopted/not adopted
- Which things adopted – where successful and why?
- Ask why adopted when successful
- Reflect on how tailored to needs of community