This PLA tool can support identification of community priorities related to a variety of topics, and you are encouraged to adapt the tool as needed to address topics relevant to your project. Step-by-step guidance for conducting this activity has been adapted from another matrix ranking/scoring tool for the following three topics: a) Animal Related Issues, b) Animal Service Providers, c) Sources of Credit [48].
T9a: Matrix Ranking and Scoring of Animal Welfare Issues
This tool uses a matrix diagram to compare animal-related issues based on community-identified reasons/criteria[1]. Matrix scoring and ranking differs from pair-wise scoring and ranking because it scores and ranks issues based on criteria agreed by participants during the exercise, rather than identifying priorities in relation to each other. This exercise enables participants and facilitators to identify priorities and gain a better understanding of the reasons underlying community’s preferences and choices and how the decision-making process happens within the group.
Tool purpose:
Time needed:
• To support animal owning communities in identifying their priority animal-related issues to address • To identification of determining factors informing animal owning communities identification of priority issues. • To understand differences in priority animal welfare issues and the criteria used to inform prioritization when activity conducted and results compared between different groups (owners/users/carers, men/women).
2 hours
Materials needed:
chart paper, pens/markers or chalk/coloured dust, stones, pebbles, local materials (leaves, seeds, etc.) Pictures if available.
Matrix ranking and scoring of animal-related issues
Matrix ranking and scoring can be used to identify and understand animal-related issues based on reasons/criteria agreed by participants. The tool can similarly be used with a greater focus on animal diseases specifically.
In the example below (Figure T9a), members of animal-owning households prioritized their working animal-related issues in terms of those felt to be most problematic, scoring each issues out of five and then ranking them. The group agreed to use frequency, severity/change of death, treatment cost, potential loss of work/income, challenging to treat to score and rank each issue. They agreed that 5 would be most serious/severe and 0 would be least serious/severe. The animal-related issue that had the highest cumulative score would be ranked as the number one priority, as it has the most severe consequences for the animal-owning households.
Figure T9a Matrix scoring and ranking of working animal-related issues
As a result of this exercise, participants identified lameness (19) as being the most significant issue, with colic (16) and hoof problems (16) were the second most important animal-related issues for the community. They decided to explore these issues further in their next session to understand the root causes.
Scoring and Ranking of Animal-related Issues
Step 1
Start by asking participants to prepare a list of animal-related issues. This could also be informed by previous discussions or tools. Alternatively, ask the group what animal-related issues can be or have been a problem in the past. It is important that the community come up with their own ideas and not be led by the facilitator. Ask the helper to draw a matrix and list the animal-related issues in the first column.
Step 2
Ask the group which issues are most problematic and note the reasons why. Once the first reason is identified, encourage the group to think about other reasons. Try to group similar reasons together, such as loss of work and loss of income (Figure 9a). Have the helper add the reasons/criteria along the top row of the matrix. If there are too many criteria, encourage participants prioritise the most important ones.
Once identified, assist participants in framing the criteria as either all positive or all negative, which will keep scoring consistent and prevent confusion. For example, criteria related to cost may be framed positively as affordable or negatively as costly. Using both positive and negatively framed criteria together (e.g. easy to address (+), costly (-) might confuse the ranking or scoring process, by mixing high scores with negative meaning and positive meaning. In T9a example, 5 = serious/severe/problematic, while 0 = non-serious/mild/non-problematic.
Step 3
Ask the group to score the animal-related issues listed in the first column against each of the criteria listed along the top row using up to five seeds or stones. Allow enough time for an in-depth discussion on the reasons for chosen scores and consensus reaching. Have the helper take notes for the reasons for choosing each score.
Step 4
Once completed, ask the group to total each row (issues) based on the scores. Then rank the issues with the highest ranking = 1, next highest =2, and so on.
Facilitate the group to draw conclusions from the exercise by asking:
• Which issue (row) had the highest and lowest scores? • Does everyone agree on the ranking? • What were the reasons for these scoring decisions (if not already identified)? • What is the significance of these scores to you? • Which issues are the highest priority to address and why?
If participants express an interest in addressing their priority issues, encourage them to analyse the root causes or major contributing factors to their priority issues as a next step.
Step 5
The matrix should be left with the community and prioritised issues added to a community action plan, which can be addressed later. Take a copy and add it to your project action tracker for future discussions and action planning
Facilitation Notes
Keep the group focused on the chosen topic, as this exercise has the potential to deviate from the original focus.
Consciously or unconsciously, there may be a tendency for facilitators to include their own criteria, rather than those of the community. Encourage participants to come up with their own criteria and avoid inserting your own ideas. Some criteria may seem strange. If participants consider it important, it needs to be respected and rationale understood.
Depending on the context, at the planning phase consider carrying out this activity separately between men and women or different groups of people (e.g. owners, users, carers) and compare the results. Differences in the roles people play in animals’ lives and/or how they depend on their animals to meet different needs can influence how people prioritize issues and make choices to act. Discuss any differences in their responses and reasons for those differences.
Encourage participants to explore the root causes of welfare issues or challenges prior to planning actions; this will promote the identification of more effective and sustainable solutions. This can be part of discussions at the end of the activity or see next steps for recommended follow-up activities to support root cause analysis.
Criteria should be either all positive or all negative: mixing positive and negative criteria can be confusing.
Explore the costs and benefits to people and animals of different solutions to prioritized issues, including preventative and treatment options, thereby helping to generate motivation to take action
Generate greater motivation to address non-prioritized issues by helping participants’ frame issues in terms of risks and opportunities
T9b: Matrix Ranking and Scoring of Animal Service Providers
This tool uses a matrix diagram to compare resource and service providers based on pre-determined criteria[1]. Matrix ranking and scoring differs from pair-wise ranking because it ranks or scores issues or items based on criteria agreed by participants during the exercise, rather than identifying priorities in relation to each other. This exercise enables participants and facilitators to identify priorities for animal-related resource and service providers and gain a better understanding of the reasons underlying community’s preferences and choices, and how the decision-making process happens within the group. Try to conduct this activity separately with owners, users and carers, including both men and women, or other relevant groups if they are likely to have different priorities.
Tool purpose:
Time needed:
• To identify priority resource and service providers • To understand criteria animal-owning communities use to make choices in their use of resources and services • To compare differences in animal and resource service provider priorities and the underlying rationales informing choices between different groups (e.g. men and women, owners/users/carers).
2 hours
Materials needed:
Chart paper and markers or using sticks, stones, straw, local resources
Matrix scoring of animal-related service providers
Service providers available in the locality are scored or ranked (see Figure T9b and T9c) against criteria participants identified as important to informing their use preferences. This exercise may be used to compare several providers of the same service (e.g. all the feed sellers) or may also be used to compare providers of different services (e.g. farrier vs agrovet vs community animal health worker etc.) Refer back to the results of T3 Venn diagram to understand the rationale for why participants rely on the animal resource and service providers. Consider using this activity to build upon the priorities identified in T8: Pairwise ranking of animal-related service and/or resource providers. However, the activity can be just as effective for prioritizing issues if used independently.
In the examples below, the services of five local animal health service providers were compared by participants within a community using a matrix scoring exercise.
Figure T9b Matrix scoring of preferences for local animal health service providers
Participants identified six criteria which they agreed were important to choosing a service provider: quality service, timely response, affordability, close proximity (distance), offers credit/repayment and friendliness/good relationship. They then scored each of the five service providers against each criteria using five seeds. Through a final discussion, participants decided to invite the prioritized health service provider to their next meeting to strengthen their relationships and negotiate a group rate for the service.
An example of the activity conducted using a ranking approach, rather than a scoring approach is also provided below for reference. The criteria are listed from top to bottom, with service providers listed from left to right. Participants were then asked to rank each service provider, against each of the criteria. The best service provider scored for the criteria was given a 1. Since there are five service providers, they would be ranked 1-5. In this example, some service providers were ranked equally and provided the same rank.
Figure T9c Matrix ranking of local animal health service providers
Matrix Ranking and Scoring of Animal-related Service Providers
Step 1
Ask participants to identify a list of resource or service providers commonly used. You may wish to refer to results from the T3 Venn diagram activity to help create the list of relevant animal-related resource and service providers for this discussion if available.
Step 2
Next, ask participants to discuss which resource or service providers they prefer to use over others, and ask what their reasons for this preference are. Have participants list all the criteria they identify as informing their preferences for difference service providers. The group can add as many criteria as possible they feel necessary, although if there are many criteria listed, encourage participants to sort out which are the most important ones.
Once identified, assist participants to reframe the criteria as needed to ensure they are either all positive or all negative. For example, a criterion related to cost may be framed positively as affordable, or negatively as costly. It is important that all criteria used either be all positive, or all negative, to ensure consistency in scoring and avoid confusion that can result when calculating final scores or ranking at the end of the activity.
Step 3
Matrix Scoring: For matrix scoring, draw a matrix on the ground with the service providers listed from top to bottom in the first column, and the criteria informing preferences for use across the top row from left to right. Then ask participants use up to ten seeds or stones to score each service provider against each criterion.
Matrix Ranking: For matrix ranking, rather than using seeds to score each service provider against each criterion, draw a matrix on the ground with the criteria listed from top to bottom in the first column, and the service providers for ranking across the top row from left to right. Ask the group to rank all the items based on the first criterion they have chosen. Then rank them all based on the second criterion and so on, until the full list of items has been compared against all the agreed criteria.
Allow enough time for in-depth discussion and analysis of the reasons for ranking or scoring and enough time to come to consensus.
Step 4
When the ranking or scoring is complete, facilitate the group to draw conclusions from the exercise by asking questions.
The following guiding questions may be useful for facilitating this discussion:
• Who scored/ranked highest and lowest? Why? • What is the significance of these scores to you? • Do those results reflect the service providers you must rely on now? If not, why not? • Are you satisfied that the providers you currently rely on are the best options for meeting the needs of you and your animal? • Are there any issues preventing you from increasing your reliance on the high scored/ranking service providers? What would you suggest would need to be different to enable you rely on these service providers? • How might you be able to better access or strengthen your relationship with these high scored/ranked service providers?
Step 5
Any identified priority issues or actions can be added to the community action plan for later discussion and action planning. The matrix should be left with the community. Take a copy and add any actions to take or follow up on to your project action tracker for future reference and planning.
Facilitation Notes
It is very important that the facilitator keep the group focused on the chosen topic, as this exercise has the potential to deviate from the original focus.
Consciously or unconsciously, there may be a tendency for facilitators to include their own criteria, rather than those of the community. Encourage participants to come up with their own criteria and avoid inserting your own ideas. Some criteria may seem strange. If participants consider it important, it needs to be respected and rationale understood.
Depending on the context, at the planning phase consider carrying out this activity separately between men and women or different groups of people (e.g. owners, users, carers) and compare the results. Differences in the roles people play in animals’ lives and/or how they depend on their animals to meet different needs can influence how people prioritize issues and make choices to act. Discuss any differences in their responses and reasons for those differences. If this activity is carried about by a single gender group (men’s or women’s group), information gathered from this activity can help inform your gender analysis and planning.
Encourage participants to explore the root causes of welfare issues or challenges prior to planning actions; this will promote the identification of more effective and sustainable solutions. This can be part of discussions at the end of the activity or see next steps for recommended follow-up activities to support root cause analysis.
Criteria should be either all positive or all negative: mixing positive and negative criteria can be confusing.
Facilitators must be clear about the specific topic being examined to keep the group focused.
Use understandings gained about what motivates animal owning communities to choose one resource or service provider over another to inform the design of projects and/or strategies.
T9c: Matrix Ranking and Scoring of Sources of Credit
This tool has been adapted from another matrix ranking/scoring tool to use a matrix diagram to compare sources of credit based on pre-determined criteria [48]. Matrix ranking and scoring differs from pair-wise ranking because it ranks or scores based on criteria agreed by participants during the exercise, rather than identifying priorities in relation to each other. This exercise enables participants and facilitators to identify priorities and gain a better understanding of the reasons underlying community’s preferences and choices for credit providers, and how the decision-making process happens. Try to conduct this activity separately with owners, users and carers, including both men and women, or other relevant groups if they are likely to have different priorities.
Tool purpose:
Time needed:
• To identify animal owning communities preferences for sources of credit and the criteria important to determining their priorities • To generate motivation amongst animal owning communities members to form a community savings group to improve access and availability of financial resources to meet their household and animal needs • To compare differences in priorities for sources of credit and the underlying rationales informing different groups’ priorities (e.g. men and women, owners/users/carers)
2 hours
Materials needed:
Chart paper, pens/markers or chalk/coloured dust, stones, pebbles, local materials (leaves, seeds, etc.)
Specific Topics: Livelihoods, Group Formation / Strengthening
Matrix ranking and scoring of sources of credit
In this adaptation of the tool, different sources of credit can be analysed against agreed criteria that group members consider important to deciding which source of credit to use to borrow money. Rather than ranking across each criteria, this example ranked credit sources at the end, to allow participants to provide greater details they felt important to distinguishing between different sources of credit within the matrix itself. This exercise can also be used to motivate community members to form a self-help/savings group if one does not already exist.
T9d Scoring & ranking of different sources of credit
The credit source analysis was carried out with a self-help group in an animal-owning community. Upon completing the chart, the group revealed the following:
Two guarantors are required for credit eligibility from money lenders and banks, whereas only one guarantor is required co-operative societies.
Banks and co-operative societies require land as collateral to be eligible for loans, whereas money lenders do not require land - they accepting jewellery as collateral instead.
Individuals can access interest-free loans from relatives.
Money lenders have the highest interest rate (6%), but can provide loans very quickly.
Banks and co-operative societies have a lower interest rate (3-4%), but the application and approval process takes a long time.
Only loans from self-help groups offer a 1% return of interest, and also offer a relatively low rate of interest (2%) in comparison with money lenders, banks and cooperative societies, as well a quick turnaround for accessing money.
Borrowing credit from money lenders and/or relatives can be high risk/stressful, as they often come with unrealistic timelines and heavy pressure to return money quickly, and are much less forgiving if repayment is late.
Through this exercise, the group realised that the best source of credit would be from a self-help group. This prompted the group to decide to establish a self-help group to start saving money together, so they could begin lending money amongst members to help meet the needs of their animals and families. As a result of establishing a savings groups, group members were able to being quickly accessing low-interest loans with low stress, the only condition for accessing loans from the group was that they had to be an official group member in good standing in terms of meeting the established savings contribution requirements.
Analysis of sources of credit using ranking
Step 1
Start by asking participants to discuss the different sources of credit and what is needed to access those sources. You can initiate the discussion by asking whom they might owe money to now or who they have borrowed from in the past. Draw a matrix either on the ground or on chart paper and list the sources of credit in a column.
Step 2
Have the group discuss the reasons for choosing one source of credit over another. List the criteria considered when selecting a source of credit along the top row of the matrix.
Examples of selection criteria might include:
• Accessibility (ease of access) • Eligibility or collateral required • Interest rate charged • Interest rate returned (from contributions to a savings group) • Availability / timeliness of accessing loans • Loan repayment flexibility (instalments vs one lump sum) • Threat or stress associated paying back the loan
The group can add as many criteria as they feel are relevant. If there are many criteria listed, encourage participants to prioritise the most important ones.
Step 3
Have the group fill in the matrix criteria for each source of credit.
Once identified, assist participants in framing the criteria as either all positive or all negative, which will keep scoring consistent and prevent confusion. For example, criteria related to accessibility may be framed positively as ‘ease of accesses, or negatively as ‘difficult to accesses. Using both positive and negatively framed criteria together e.g. easy to access (+), difficult to access (-) might confuse the ranking or scoring process, by mixing high scores with negative meaning and positive meaning.
Step 4
Upon completion, ask the group to total each row based on the scores that they have assigned each criterion. If a self-help is identified as a credit option, consider ranking the sources of credit in addition to scoring. If a self-help group is not an option, it is not necessary to rank the sources of credit. In this case, it might be an appropriate time to introduce the option of a self-help group.
Then, have the group rank the scores if a self-help group was identified, with the number one (1) having the highest score, number two having the second (2) highest score and so on.
Step 5
Ask the group to draw conclusions from the exercise by asking:
• What are some reasons for needing credit? • Which sources of credit are used most often to meet your needs? Do you use any of these sources of credit to help you meet the needs of your animals as well e.g. to pay for health services, or purchase feed or equipment? If have self-help groups have not been identified as a source of credit, then consider these discussion questions: • Based on the criteria and the results of this exercise, are you satisfied that the sources of credit you currently rely on are the best options to meet your credit needs? • What are the benefits of starting or joining a group like for example self-help group or animal welfare group or saving and credit cooperatives?
Step 6
The matrix should be left with the community and opportunities to learn more about group formation and collective action activities added to a community action plan, which can be addressed later. Take a copy and add it to your project action tracker for future discussions and action planning.
Facilitation Notes
It is very important that the facilitator keep the group focused on the chosen topic, as this exercise has the potential to deviate from the original focus.
Consciously or unconsciously, there may be a tendency for facilitators to include their own criteria, rather than those of the community. Encourage participants to come up with their own criteria and avoid inserting your own ideas. Some criteria may seem strange. If participants consider it important, it needs to be respected and rationale understood.
Depending on the context, at the planning phase consider carrying out this activity separately between men and women or different groups of people (e.g. owners, users, carers) and compare the results. Differences in the roles people play in animals’ lives and/or how they depend on their animals to meet different needs can influence how people prioritize issues and make choices to act. Discuss any differences in their responses and reasons for those differences.
Encourage participants to explore the root causes of welfare issues or challenges prior to planning actions; this will promote the identification of more effective and sustainable solutions. This can be part of discussions at the end of the activity or see next steps for recommended follow-up activities to support root cause analysis.
Criteria should be either all positive or all negative: mixing positive and negative criteria can be confusing.
Facilitators must be clear about the specific topic being examined to keep the group focused.
Next Steps
This activity can be followed by T15 Cost-Benefit Analysis to explore the costs and benefits to people and animals of different solutions to credit sources, including alternative sources, thereby helping to generate motivation to take action.
Use understandings gained about what motivates animal owning communities to inform the design of projects and/or strategies.
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Development Approach, Community Engagement Approach
Behavioural Drivers (COM-B): Motivation
Stages of Behaviour Change: Pre-contemplation Stage, Contemplation Stage
Project Support: Facilitator Resources, Training
Specific Topics: Outreach and Communications; Community Change Agents
How community facilitators respond to community members’ resistance to change is a big determining factor in the outcome of their interactions with them, and the ability to help community members move toward behaviour change[113]. This resource outlines guidance for overcoming resistance to change you may encounter amongst community members.
What is Resistance?
Resistance is what happens when we expect or push for change when community members are not ready for that change. It often reflects conscious or unconscious defences against change. While the reasons community members are not ready to change in the way we desire may not be clear to us or to community members, they exist and ignoring them gets us nowhere.
Signs of resistance may include:
Community members may interrupt you.
Community members may seem distracted (looking at watch, phone, etc.).
Community members may get defensive.
Types of Resistance
The manifestations of resistance to change typically fall into two categories: sustain talk (a manifestation of ambivalence) and discord, and different strategies may need to be adopted depending on which of these manifestations you encounter. These two types of resistance and tips for dealing with are discussed below:
DISCORD: Discord refers to statements from community members about the intervention process or relationship to the community facilitator, particularly the direction in which community members perceive things are going [57]. This often feels like resistance but actually discord which is related to a lack of trust/respect/empathy/power sharing in the relationship, which can result in the break down in the relationship and sense of partnership. When people don’t believe we really value their opinions or experiences, and/or if they feel you are trying to tell them or force them to change or acting like an expert without understanding their life, they will either resist you, resent you, or both. As a result, they will become more motivated to defend their position. Examples of comments indicating there is discord: “You don’t understand.”, “You can’t help me.”
SUSTAIN TALK: Sustain talk represents the other side of a person's ambivalence about changing. It can be an expression of a community member’s desire for the way things are, feeling unable to change, having reasons for keeping things the same or needing to keep things the way they are.
Remember that every behaviour has a positive intention, it may not just be positive from your perspective. Thus, it is important to believe the best in others and ensure that you have a positive intention.
Avoid Arguments and Pushing Back
Respect the resistance and roll with it, don’t confront it directly and avoid arguing for change as thisusually causes community members to keep voicing sustain talk (the reasons not to change).[113], and can undermine interpersonal communication and relationships (e.g. refer to facilitator resource Essential Communication Skills for Promoting Behaviour Changefor information on ego states and transactional analysis).
Avoid the righting reflex:
Resist the urge to provide unsolicited advice or guidance and telling people what to do to improve their situation as this often times result in discord. Acknowledge that the righting reflex is present and ask yourself to override it.
Talk less and listen more using active listening skills (refer to facilitator resource: Essential Communication Skills for Facilitating Behaviour Change for additional guidance).
If someone hasn’t volunteered to be part of a conversation about change or doesn’t want to change or aren’t open to making suggestions, or if you see an immediate welfare issue you feel you need to mention you can still share your concerns in a spirit of partnership using the Ask-Offer-Ask model of providing feedback (refer to Guidance on Providing Advice and Feedback: Ask-Offer-Ask within the facilitator resource 4. Guidance on Facilitating Conversations for Change). For example: Don’t say you shouldn’t do this, you need to change etc., and instead use the ask-offer-ask model:
Ask - May I share my concerns about this issue/behaviour?
Offer - My concern is that this puts you/your animal at risk of…because
Ask – What do you think about my concerns?
Sometimes you may have to apologize or shift the conversation. for example, if you find people responding in a way indicating they may be feeling invalidated, resistant, or withdrawing as a result of your attempts to provide unsolicited advice, and you have the opportunity to catch it quickly in the moment, you can backtrack and say, “I’m sorry, I realize you didn’t ask for my opinion, what do you think about …” [113].
TIPS FOR DEALING WITH SUSTAIN TALK
Roll with Resistance: When you encounter community members who are resistant to change and expressing a lot of sustain talk, it is helpful to roll with this resistance rather than try to fight or debate it, as this can further cement their unwillingness to change [113, 57].
Evoke Change Talk: Focus on eliciting community members’ consideration of, motivation for, or commitment to change, also referred to as change talk(refer to facilitator resourceGuidance on Listening for Change Talkfor further guidance). You can do this by:
Reflect on the problem using summaries as a means to show empathy and make the person feel they are heard which will build rapport.
Actively listen for a person’s positive strengths, skills, values, efforts, accomplishments, aspirations and traits, and to reflect those back to them using affirmations to shift focus away from the negative and focus on positive characteristics or the person as a means to build rapport, motivate and inspire their own belief in self and the possibility for change.
If they say, “maybe I could do something” you can respond by asking whether it would be possible to discuss this next time you meet to give them more time to process.
Use a change scale/ruler (e.g. readiness for, confidence to, importance of change) and discuss what would move them up the scale.
Reflect back “a part of you is interested….what is it that makes you curious about or what would be helpful towards taking a step in the future?”
Ask what would be helpful for them
Emphasize Choice and Control [114, 57]: Embody the spirit of working in partnership with communities, by emphasizing the client's choice and control (autonomy) can help minimize resistance and move the conversation away from sustain talk. This means explicitly stating something along the lines of "It really is your choice what you will do about _______" or “Ultimately it is your choice, and I’m happy to work with you on this, perhaps we can talk about this next time we see each other?”
Shift Focus [114, 57]: when talking about an issue becomes counterproductive you can respond by shifting the conversation away from what seems to be a stumbling block to progress (shifting focus). This means changing the subject. An example of shifting focus might sound like "That doesn't seem like a problem to you right now. What are some of the things you're dealing with that you feel are a challenge?" The facilitator resource Example of Five Domains of Animal Welfare for Donkeys Linked with Human Behaviours provides guidance on how you can use the five domains of animal welfare framework linked with human behaviours to shift focus to identifying behaviours people can enact to improve their animal’s welfare when they are resistant or unable to adopt desired behaviours.
Develop Discrepancy[113]: change won’t occur without discrepancy. It allows the client to realize their current behaviour isn’t leading to their desired goal and to be more open to change.
Help community members define their most important goals for their animals’ welfare
Help community members see that their current behaviours don’t align with their ultimate goals that are important/valuable.
Help community members see the difference between their core values and their behaviour(s).
Create gap between where community members are and where they want to be.
Promote community members' belief in their ability to do what is needed to change.
Focus on past successes and skills and strengths community members have or can easily learn.
Promote self-esteem and build confidence.
TECHNIQUES FOR EVOKING CHANGE TALK [57, 112]:
Ask Evocative Questions: Ask an open question which you believe the person will respond to with change talk. The simplest and most direct way to elicit change talk is by asking a series of targeted questions from the following four categories:
Disadvantages of the status quo e.g. “What difficulties have resulted from not providing your animal with timely medical care? What worries you about your animals’ welfare?”
Advantages of change e.g. “What do you think life would be like, or what do you think would be different, for you and your animals if you did make a change and resolve this animal welfare issue?”, “What are the advantages of feeding your animal appropriate quality and quantities of feed?”
Optimism for change e.g. “When have you made a significant change in your animal’s welfare before? How did you do it?”, “What strengths do you have that would help you to improve your animal’s welfare?”
Intention to change e.g. “In what ways do you want your animals’ welfare to be different five years from now?”, “Forget about how you would achieve it for a moment, if you could do anything, what would you change about your animal’s welfare?”
Alternatively, if you are short on time, a quick method of drawing out ‘change talk’ is to use an ‘importance ruler’ (refer to change ruler below).
Use Change Rulers: Ask: “On a scale from 1 to 10, how important is it to you to change [the specific target behaviour] where 1 is not at all important, and a 10 is extremely important?” Follow up: “And why are you at [xxx] and not [a lower number than stated]?”. “What might happen that could move you from [xxx] to [a higher number]?” or “What would move you up the scale?” Alternatively, instead of importance, you could ask in terms of their confidence to make the change if they decided to do so, or their readiness to change e.g. on a scale of 0-10, with zero being I’m not ready to change, and 10 being ready to change.
If respondent gives you a zero, use reflections to reflect their sentiment back e.g. “at this time, you don’t feel like the right time to make this change YET.”
If respondent gives you a low number, use open ended question to ask them why they scored it 1 or 2 and not a zero as this can evoke more change talk about the part of them that is wanting to change.
If respondent provides a low number, an open ended question asking “what would it take to move that from a 5-7” can also get them thinking about strategies for how they could make this change, which can help boost their confidence in their ability to attempt change.
Explore Decisional Balance: Ask for the pros and cons of both changing and staying the same.
Good Things/Not-‐So-‐Good Things: Ask about the positives and negatives of the behaviour targeted for change.
Ask for Elaboration/Examples: When a change talk theme emerges, ask for more details. “In what ways?” “Tell me more?” “What does that look like?” “When was the last time that happened?”
Look Back: Ask about a time before the target behaviour emerged. How were things better, different?
Look Forward: Ask what may happen if things continue as they are (status quo). Try the miracle question: If you were 100% successful in making the changes you want, what would be different? How would you like your life to be five years from now?
Query Extremes: What are the worst things that might happen if you don’t make this change? What are the best things that might happen if you do make this change?
Explore Goals and Values: Ask about what their guiding values are, or refer back to previous conversations with the person where they provided an indication of their guiding values. What do they want in life? Using a values card sort activity can be helpful here. Ask how the continuation of target behaviour fits in with the person’s goals or values. Does it help realize an important goal or value, interfere with it, or is it irrelevant?
Come Alongside: Explicitly side with the negative (status quo) side of ambivalence. “Perhaps [xxx] is so important to you, that you won’t change no matter what the cost.”
This tool analyses the differences in control over resources and services important to promoting animal welfare amongst men and women from animal-owning households. Resources and services important to promoting animal welfare may include water, feed and/or grazing land, financial resources, equipment for working animals (e.g. harnesses, carts), grooming supplies, and services, such as animal health service providers. This tool is a great follow-up to T12 Dependency Analysis.
Internal control within the household refers to who is able to make the decision about provision of a resource and/or service, as well as their purchase and sale. This should not be confused with roles and responsibilities, which can be analyzed in T5 Gender Roles and Responsibilities.
Tool purpose:
Time needed:
• To generate understanding of gender-based differences in control and their implications over resource and service provision important to promoting animal welfare. • To motivate participants to take action to address gender-based differences in control over resource and services. • May be used to evaluate changes in gender equality related to control over animal-related resources and services if repeated over the course of project.
2-3 hours
Materials needed:
Chalk, coloured dust, stick, stones, pebbles, cards or paper, pens, and any other locally available resources to represent service or resources.
An animal-owning community used this activity to explore differences in control over animal-related resources and services between men and women.
Figure T10a - Control Analysis - blank template
Figure T10b - Control Analysis - completed by a group of women
Figure T10c Control Analysis of differences between men and women
Following the chart’s creation, the group analyzed the gender-based differences in control of resources and services. They identified the opportunity to train women to feel empowered to treat basic illnesses and wounds. This was necessary as men frequently migrate for work, leaving women with little capacity or skills to treat animals in their absence.
Control Analysis
Planning Phase - Community Scale Planning
Step 1
Start by asking the group to think of all the resources and services they use to care for their animals and have the helper write them down. If T12 Dependency analysis was performed prior to this exercise, use the resources and services listed step 1 (this should be in the community action plan).
Step 2
Ask the community helper to draw a large table, either on the ground using a stick, coloured dust/chalk or on chart paper using markers. There should be three main columns: ‘Resources & services’, ‘control - men’ and ‘control – women’ (See figure T10a).
Please note: If there is an additional household member that also controls the provision of animal-related resources and services, such as a child, add another column under ‘control’.
Step 3
Ask the group to analyse the household control by asking the question: who makes the decision about provision of a resource or service?
Remember: internal control refers to seeking the service or making the decision about purchase and sale of resources.
For example: If men and women were equally able to make the decision about the service, without having to ask permission from the other, then the pebbles would be divided equally. The score would be men and women with 5 pebbles each. (See figure T10b).
Step 4
Ask participants to analyse the differences in control over resources and service provision between men and women. Ask the community helper to record the responses or note them yourself.
The following questions may be used to guide the discussion:
• Why are there differences in control over resources and services provision between men and women? • How can you improve animal welfare by changing decision making between men and women?
Step 5
After this discussion, ask participants what actions they can take towards making these changes. Help the group to qualify short-term (~3 months) versus long-term actions (more than a year). If there is a long list, have the group prioritise just one or two to focus on before the next meeting.
Summarize the results of the activity and have the community helper add any actions and activities to the community action plan. Agree on a date and time for the next session.
The chart should be left with the community. Make a copy or take a photograph for your reference for future discussions and further action planning. Add a copy to your project action tracker.
Repeat steps 1-3 (above) to assess the changes agreed by the community in step 4 within the community action plan, by comparing with the previous activity outputs (step 5).
Initiate a final discussion using the following questions as guidance:
• The reasons for changes (why they may or may not have occurred). • How changes have impacted on animal welfare and their own lives.
Comparing the past results to present situation can generate useful discussion about perceived improvements in animal welfare and related benefits to people’s livelihoods and well-being that have resulted from changes.
Facilitation Notes
An experienced facilitator should lead this discussion, as topics related to gender may be sensitive, require good rapport and ability to gauge the group’s level of comfort.
Decide the group dynamics ahead of time and whether it would be best carried out with men and women (or other subgroups) separately or in a mixed group. This will depend on your rapport with the community, culture and local gender dynamics.
If conducted separately between men and women, consider bringing the two groups back together at the end of the activity to review the results of each chart and resolve any discrepancies if time allows.
Next Steps
Record the community’s short and long-term actions and linked activities in your project action tracker. Revisit the activities in the next meeting to monitor their progress and what further support is required.
T12 Dependency Analysis to understand the community’s dependencies on external actors and potential implications for resource and service provision important to promoting animal welfare.
The table below provides a summary of general guidance for community facilitators to support working with community members to progress through the different stages of change. It includes definitions of each stage of change with examples in the context of animal welfare, along with the process for community facilitators to focus on when individuals are in each stage, as well as recommended tools and techniques helpful to harnessing people’s own motivations and rationales for change, and building their confidence and commitment to take action and sustain change.
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Development Approach, Community Engagement Approach, Societal Outreach and Campaigns Approach
Behavioural Drivers (COM-B): Motivation
Stages of Change: Stages of Change, Pre-contemplation Stage, Contemplation Stage, Preparation Stage, Action Stage, Maintenance Stage
Project Support: Facilitator Resources, Training
Specific Topics: Outreach and Communication, Community Change Agents
Stage of Change
Processes for Change / What to Focus On
Recommended Tools / Techniques to Use in Each Stage of Change
Pre-contemplation:
Individuals do not recognize the need for change or are not actively considering change.
Consequences/cons of change are felt to outweigh the benefits/positives.
For example, a person doesn’t think it is a problem if they do not provide their animals with access to water to drink throughout the day.
• Build Rapport – show respect and empathy by recognizing individuals’ expertise in their own lives/situations, their intentions for acting informed by their expertise and lived experiences, support their autonomy in decision making rather imposing your expertise.
• Evoke individuals’ reasons for change by connecting behaviour change to the things the individual cares about.
• Elicit change talk/their rationales for change by bringing their attention to their rationales for change and minimize attention and discussion focused on exploring rationales for sustaining their current practices.
• Consciousness Raising: Support individuals to seek out new information to gain understanding and feedback about the problem behaviour to help improve their awareness of the problem (e.g. facts, leaflets). You may wish to consider undertaking a Societal Outreach and Campaigns Approach as a first step.
• Dramatic relief: Support individuals experience and express feelings about the problem behaviour and potential solutions, encourage self-evaluative process that enables individuals to assess/understand the negative impacts of the current behaviour and potential benefits of change.
• Environmental Re-evaluation: help raise doubt and increase the person’s perception of the risks and problems with their current behaviour e.g. guided discussions with others, testimonies, storytelling that promote learning and reflection about how their actions affect their animals/themselves/others.
If individuals continue not to recognize or accept there is a problem, focus on continuing to build rapport through active listening, asking open ended questions, using reflections and summaries about what they community and show empathy so they feel understood. Ensure they understand change is ultimately up to them and not being pushed on them. Consider asking to schedule a time when the discussion can be revisited, perhaps after they take time to reflect or seek out additional information.
Recommended Tools/Techniques:
Use OARS to elicit change talk, build rapport, show empathy, and:
• Open ended questions to invite individuals to tell their story in their own words, and provides an opportunity to learn more about what the person cares about e.g. their values and goals.
• Affirmations: Can take the form of compliments or statements of appreciation and understanding that recognize a person’s strengths and acknowledge behaviours / qualities / characteristics that encourage the direction of desired positive change, helps build rapport and their confidence in their ability to change.
• Reflective listening: Involves rephrasing a statement to capture the implicit meaning and feeling of a person’s statement, encourages and helps people understand their motivations more, and helps amplify or reinforce individuals desire for change.
• Summarize what you have heard individuals, highlighting in particular any recognition of the problem, their concerns about the issue, their intent to change, or their optimism about their ability or outcome of making change.
Provide Feedback using Ask – Offer – Ask approach:
• Ask permission to discuss behaviour to show respect, Ask what they already know before offering feedback / advice / information about the issue, Ask permission to offer information they may not know.
• Offer information or feedback if granted to permission to do so.
• Ask them to reflect on the feedback/information you have provided.
Individuals recognize the problem related to their behaviour and are considering change.
They are weighing the pros and cons of change but are ambivalent and/or uncertain, and may feel the negatives of change still outweigh the positives.
For example, a person doesn’t take preventative measures against animal disease despite being concerned about the health risks diseases pose.
• Guide their internal motivation by continuing to elicit change talk / their rationales for change to strengthen their commitment to change.
• Self re-evaluation/Re-evaluating self-image: work to facilitate changing their beliefs and attitudes by (Davis Jr. 2010): - helping them recognise the difference between their values and behaviour/creating cognitive dissonance, - values clarification activities or discussions, - contact and discussions with role models, - guided imagery (where people imagine themselves in the new situation [e.g., animal experiences good welfare and they feel good about practicing desired behaviour]
• Support individuals to choose change through weighing up the pros and cons of change to resolve their ambivalence/tip the balance between the pros and cons by: - exploring ambivalence and alternatives, - identifying reasons for change/risks of not changing, - increasing the persons confidence in their ability to change.
Highlight/promote awareness of success stories/those who have made and sustained similar change to encourage others to follow their example and improve their confidence in their ability to change.
Recommended Tools/Techniques:
Strengthen commitment to change through use of OARS (see above):
• Elicit change talk by asking open-ended questions related to: disadvantages of the status quo advantages of change optimism for change their intention to change.
• Use reflections to amplify or reinforce individuals desire for change.
• Use affirmations to help build individuals confidence in their ability to change.
• Use summaries to point out discrepancies between the person’s current situation and future goals.
Individuals are motivated to change their behaviour/see the benefits of change, and are intent upon taking action.
They believe the positives/benefits of change outweigh the costs, however are considering what to do.
For example, a person is convinced of the benefits of addressing a particular welfare issue, but lack the understanding of what to do about it.
• Goal Setting - support individuals to identify a specific target for change / goal.
• Making a commitment to change.
• Support them to explore options for making the change and select appropriate strategies for taking action e.g. identify time to act, who/what will help.
• Recognize/reiterate individuals’ choice and control over any decisions or change they make.
• Develop a realistic plan for taking action.
• Discuss potential problems/challenges and solutions to help reduce their perceived/real barriers that may make the behaviour more difficult to adopt e.g. how to acquire the necessary knowledge or skills, or ideas for reducing costs.
• Create social conditions to support individuals in making the change as needed (Davis Jr. 2010): - work to change community norms to favour change - draw attention to those who have made a change - organize events or create opportunities for individuals to make their commitment to change publicly or in front of others for greater accountability
Recommended Tools/Techniques:
• Continue elicit change talk to strengthen individuals commitment to change. • Write down individuals goals for change and change plan.
Individuals have initiated change and start practicing the new behaviour, experiencing its benefits as well as costs, such as time, effort, money, opinions of They are taking steps towards change, however haven’t fully stabilized in the process.
For example, a person has begun sheltering their animals at night, however may find that this now requires extra effort to regularly keep it clean.
• Support individuals to implement action plans and take steps toward change based on the plan they developed and revise as needed.
• Work to
• Recognize/reward successes: provide encouragement and feedback on positive steps taken towards desired behaviours, praise and recognize individuals efforts.
• Support individuals to overcome challenges e.g. skill building, assisting with solving problems, identifying and removing/avoiding problem behaviour triggers.
• Consider mechanisms for supporting accountability to help maintain individuals motivation and commitment e.g. self-monitoring, public sharing of achievements/proud moments, give praise and recognition of efforts, facilitate peer-peer support networks.
Recommended Tools/Techniques:
Affirmations can be used to recognize individuals’ strengths and efforts in taking action to change.
Individuals are practicing the new behaviour and making necessary adjustments to sustain the change. The benefits or positives of change are clearly outweigh the costs/negatives. new behaviour is sustained for at least 6 months.
For example, despite efforts to require to learn how to train their animals using positive reinforcement rather than harmful punishments, a person continued guiding their horses without whipping for at least 6 months.
Ensure preconditions for sustainability of change.
Support individuals to develop processes and skills for maintaining change.
Support individuals to identify and use strategies to prevent return to prior behaviour.
Continue to promote individuals’ motivation and confidence in abilities to sustain change through:
• Regular discussions and reflection, and sharing of success stories by those who have made and sustained change, and recognize people’s efforts to change and encourage others to follow their example.
• Continue positive reinforcement and establish mechanisms of rewards and recognition for maintaining behaviours e.g. acknowledge individuals efforts, commitment, and achievements, encourage individuals to be role models for others, public sharing of their successes, continued self-monitoring and reflection on their positive efforts and achievements, as well as benefits of change.
• Encouraged utilization of support systems e.g. peer support networks, linkages with local organizations/extension agents etc.
Establish accountability mechanisms that encourage individuals to sustain change e.g. self-monitoring and sharing of results, peer-peer support and sharing of progress.
Recommended Tools/Techniques:
Affirmations can be used to recognize individuals’ strengths and efforts in maintaining change.
Effective outreach messaging is key to delivering sustainable changes to improve animal welfare. This resource will outline how to develop your messaging strategy; the psychological and societal drivers to consider that will influence the content and design of the messaging; and how to design and deliver messaging in the most effective way to be heard, accepted, and ultimately change behaviour. Follow the steps outlined in the Community Development, Community Engagement, and Societal Outreach and Campaigns Approaches to gather the information you need to generate a greater understanding of your target audience, including barriers that might prevent behaviour change, and what messaging and communication mediums may work best for the specific audience you aim to target.
Stages of Change: Pre-Contemplation Stage, Contemplation Stage
Project Support: Facilitator Resources, Training
Specific Topics: Outreach and Communication,Community Change Agents
ATTENTION!
Communication is a two-way process; it is as important to listen as it is to speak. Listen to feedback given by your target audience, ask for their guidance and then actively listen to their response, and avoid imposing your own ideas without giving full credence to theirs. Your target audience will teach you about their community, so listen and observe carefully.
1.1 Developing your messaging strategy
No community is homogenous, so it is critical to consider the following as you develop ideas (adapted from [32]):
Who do you want to communicate with?
Are there potential supporters or barriers to communication? You need to ascertain who the allies and gatekeepers are to the information you want to communicate i.e. those who may support or regulate the way messaging can be designed and disseminated? You will need to need to anticipate reactions when developing/framing the messages so ensure you work with these allies and gatekeepers to facilitate the effectiveness of the communication.
Do you need to tailor messages for different target audiences? Are you trying to change the behaviour of animal owners, or perhaps people who offer resource provision for animal owners, or those at a higher level of leadership within a community?
Why should your message matter to your audience?
What are the differences within your target audience you need to consider, such as values, social norms, beliefs, religions, traditions, power dynamics and varied experiences because of intersecting issues in their lives?
Does everyone in your target audience have a similar capacity and motivation for change? For example, are there differences in literacy levels, knowledge, and access to resources or wide socio-economic divides? Does everyone have the same need or want to change?
What is the main overarching narrative any messaging needs to convey?
What are your communication goals? Key messages need to support these goals. Try to keep specific goals to only one or two; distribution of resources over too many goals will dilute messaging and reduce the likelihood of behaviour change.
What are your messaging needs - are they needed to support a long term or short-term subject?
How does your messaging create a sustainable vision for the future – do you know what that might look like?
How widely do you want to disseminate information? (this may also depend on your organisation’s targets, which will influence how accessible it needs to be to a wider audience) A small, more personalised approach can be more effective but is more resource heavy, than a larger scale approach, which is less resource intensive, reaches a greater audience but may cause less degree of change [88].
How do the audience share information between themselves, and how do they most readily receive information?
Your message is the core information you wish to communicate, through whichever media you have decided will be most effective within your target audience (refer to Societal and Campaigns Approach for more information about types of communication media). Your messaging needs to persuade people that they need to change, though of course behaviour change is not as simple as telling someone they need to change. People need to be supported and given opportunities to explore the problems and generate ideas for possible solutions - giving them ownership of the changes they need to create ( [89]). Bear in mind you will never attain 100% uptake of any behaviour change target, people are individuals with differing priorities and pressures.
1.2 Psychological and societal drivers your messaging strategy needs to consider
Behaviour is incredibly complex so effective messaging to create sustainable behaviour change needs to consider how all the following drivers’ interplay and influence each other, for example, knowledge can influence attitudes but then changing attitudes can lead to a person seeking out more knowledge; internal and external drivers can be interdependent [90]. Also refer to the facilitator resource 2. Essential communication skills for promoting behaviour change.
1.2.1 Internal and External Drivers
Internal and external drivers must be considered when designing messaging for human behaviour change. The following section outlines different internal and external drivers influencing people’s behaviours.
Social norms are the informal rules and understandings everyone abides by [91] and are an important driver in behaviour change; what people see others doing may be more likely to encourage them to adopt the behaviour [90]. However, social norms can also create barriers to positive behaviours by the persistence of negative behaviours that are perceived as acceptable within that community [91]. Social norms as drivers of behaviour make perfect sense; if we see others performing a behaviour, we can see that it works, and we can also observe the method. People are drawn towards those who behave the same way and avoid those who deviate (generally!). Using messaging that harnesses social and descriptive norms may increase the effectiveness of the information you are trying to convey, particularly when the information is included as part of guided group discussion [90]. For example, highlighting how a target behaviour has benefitted or been adopted by a proportion of people already within their community, is more likely to influence uptake, than communicating about social responsibility towards animal welfare improvement. Be careful when developing messaging, as highlighting the frequency people engage in undesirable behaviours can also increase the likelihood of other people adopting these behaviours for the same reasons as previously mentioned. People are highly social, so if they believe an undesirable behaviour is common within their community your message could have the opposite impact to the one you are expecting [90, 89].
Introducing this concept in your messaging is important to overcome barriers such as those mentioned previously, in the maintenance of negative behaviours due to social norms. Introducing shared values, a value-based approach, or thinking about the values needed to grow within the community to move towards positive behaviour change, can create useful dialogue about the similarities we share with the audience and enables diverging behaviour to be reframed within a more acceptable vision [91]. Values determine a person’s willingness to change, their openness to new information and their concern for ‘others’. Although changing people’s values is incredibly difficult, targeting these values when developing messaging can be a very effective method to encourage behaviour change [90].
Attitudes are strong predictors of behaviour when “based on personal experience, specific to the behaviour, and salient”. The most effective messaging considers the credibility of its source (your key influencers), the format your messaging takes and its content. Make messaging applicable and salient for your target audience, something the audience can believe is replicable and beneficial to them in their current environment [90].
In addition, an individual’s beliefs will influence their interpretation and processing of messaging; beliefs are an individual’s assertion that something exists or is true developed from their direct personal exposure to information. People are more likely to accept messaging that is framed in a way that is consistent with their beliefs; if messaging does not challenge their world view, they are less likely to reject it. When people are exposed to messaging that is inconsistent with their beliefs, they are likely to show resistance to the new information and more firmly fix onto their original view; this also has implications when developing messaging as people will most strongly believe the first messaging that is delivered so ensuring it is accurate is essential. Be aware of your own beliefs when developing messaging, incorrect assumptions may cause offence and alienate your audience.
Personal norms will play a part in how willing someone is to take responsibility and change their behaviour. It is difficult to increase someone’s sense of personal responsibility but asking for a level of commitment through your communications can increase the likelihood a person will try to act. This is even more effective when people verbalise or write their commitments publicly rather than in private, but these commitments should always be a voluntary action [90]. When an agreed commitment is written and displayed publicly within a community, those who have joined in with the agreement will have a greater feeling that the behaviour change is being internally driven by their own choices. For behaviour change to be truly sustainable, a person needs to be able to attribute that change to themselves, rather than some external forces. However, there will be differences on how much value is placed on individuals expressing their own individual behaviour, depending on whether communities have interdependent or independent cultures [90].
Emotions are a useful route to encourage sustainable behaviour [90]. Increasing empathy, such as encouraging your target audience to ‘imagine how an animal feels’ or by appreciating some elements of shared experiences with their animals, may promote willingness to try methods of husbandry that are known to be more humane.
Self efficacy or a person’s belief in their ability to perform an action, increases motivation to perform a behaviour [90]. Some members of your target audience, such as those more marginalised or discriminated against, may have less confidence in their ability to create change or make a difference [92, 93]. Using messaging that increases knowledge about the behavioural options available to improve animal welfare, particularly when broken down into smaller manageable steps with regular positive feedback, can support peoples’ perceptions of their ability to change their practices [90]. Messaging may need to be developed that helps support the challenging or broadening of perceptions within the wider public e.g. promoting women as key decision makers in seeking services when this is not typical within their community or how an individual woman perceives themselves.
Encouraging the collaboration of groups of individuals, either as formed memberships or peer to peer, can increase the effectiveness of messaging. Groups of individuals working together may provide a link between individual action attempts and a wider societal reach; working together provides social support and encourages sustaining behaviour change to form habitual patterns. Social capital or the shared bonds, reciprocity and trust encouraged by working together increases obligations and cooperation and is a useful concept to embrace. However, it will not work in isolation if a community does not have the capacity for change (such as a lack of resources, knowledge, power and so on) but embedding messages within social groups is known to increase their effectiveness. Ensuring messaging and communications are participatory in their development increases the chances the behaviour change will be adopted by heightening the sense of group or social identity and empowerment within the target audience [90].
Correct framing will influence how well received and understood your messaging is, and ultimately influence whether people are likely to change their behaviour and/ or attitudes. Incorrectly framed messages may move people into cognitive dissonance and denial, creating a barrier towards any further change [94]; but harnessing dissonance may also motivate behaviour change in a direction more consistent with a person’s attitudes and as the behaviour changes the attitude may change to be more consistent with the behaviour [90].
1.3 How to design and deliver effective messages
Messaging as a journey (adapted from [124])
To provide a good, solid foundation, messaging needs to capture attention and be relevant to your audience:
Where possible, use media or communications that utilise all the senses – people learn and remember in different ways so try to capture the imagination of as many of your audience as possible. Embed messages within the physical environment your target audience frequent and the media sources they tend to utilise [125].
Applicable
Applicable: to real life - tangible, believable, achievable
Make the idea you are trying to convey tangible to that audience – if a concept is tricky to understand make it clearer by relating it to something where they do have experience.
Personalised
Personalised: to your target audience – beliefs, social norms, attitudes etc.,
Use images as close to the target audiences’ experience as possible – it needs to be believable, and people need to feel they too could achieve what is being shown. Use local landmarks, recognisable clothing, types of building, and so on.
(Adapted from [32])
1.3.1 Development of messaging
An effective communication strategy must include well-conceived content, but the delivery, dissemination and execution of the information is key to drawing the audience in whilst also motivating and empowering them to change [97].
Keep messaging simple, avoid jargon or the use of unfamiliar terminology as this will turn a receptive audience into an ambivalent one very quickly.
Use audience guidance to develop messages
Target audiences may adhere to very different values and behaviours in terms of communication styles. Develop relationships and be creative, respect, listen and respond to these differences. It is important to generate messaging that is meaningful to your audience and allow them to be instrumental in supporting that process of change. Prescriptive communications and provision of solutions can create reliance and disempower your audience, and this process can encourage psychological reactance, which creates barriers to change [91, 98]. See Societal Outreach and Campaigns Approach for the practical ways to encourage target audience discussion.
Frame your message
Evaluation of ways that make the behaviour easy or difficult, and whether solutions are simple or require more involved interventions, all impact how messaging is framed and how it will be received. People cannot change their behaviour if the resource required to support that change is not available within their environment or is inaccessible due to its cost or complexity of use [90]. Most messages highlight positive outcomes but sometimes highlighting the losses that may be incurred if a behaviour change is not adopted can be more effective. Emphasising the local and immediate impacts of the issue can encourage your audience to relate to the issue and increase effectiveness of communications [32, 97].
Debunking
Correcting misinformation or myths can backfire, so it is recommended to avoid using this technique in your messaging. Mentioning misinformation can serve to increase familiarity and reinforce the maintenance or adoption of negative undesirable behaviours. If you have no option and this technique must be used, any misinformation debunking should always follow clear evidence containing the correct information [97].
Make messaging specific
Describe actions clearly, in easy steps to improve clarity and comprehension and increase a person’s self-efficacy (see section 1.2.1).
Avoid fear based, threatening or authoritarian/ prescriptive messaging
People react to these types of messages with either problem-focused coping or emotion-focused coping, and responses are heavily reliant on the degree of self-efficacy (see section 1.2.1) and the control people have of their situation. Reactions are likely to lead to avoidance, particularly when dealing with marginalised communities, so this method of messaging should be avoided [32].
Encourage commitment
By getting people to sign up to the project, perhaps those who have signed up or pledged to work at targeted changes get some visible marker that they have joined – such as a badge or other signal that increases the chance of them sticking to the project (people do not like to be inconsistent), which can then encourage peers to want to sign up. Refer to personal norms and social norms in section 1.2.1. for more information. Public commitment to change tends to be effective at sustained behaviour change by transferring motivation from an external source (pleasing others) to an internal one (self-fulfilment) [90, 89].
Provide goals
Encouraging the target audience either individually or together to work towards certain target behaviours can increase the perception of social norms (see section 1.2.1.) and encourage peer-to peer pressure to engage in them.
Make messages memorable
Develop specific prompts to help people remember the behaviour changes when you are clear which behaviour you are targeting, these prompts can also be linked to parts of an established routine to increase the chances of habit formation [91]. If there are barriers to people adopting some behaviours, for instance being unsure about how to treat certain wounds, you could create a card that your audience can use that takes them through the steps (either visually or written depending on literacy) or create a vivid reminder to water their animals that they can attach to somewhere prominent [32, 89].
1.3.2 Delivery of messages
Use a credible source
Pick your spokesperson/s carefully; trust and rapport is an important element of behaviour change [97]. To disseminate some of your messaging you may want to use existing social networks and so enlisting people considered influential within their community is key – refer to Societal Outreach and Campaigns Approach for guidance on how to identify these key influencers. Do not immediately assume the key influencers to be the official leaders within a community. Do your research; key influencers are those who the target audience look up to as valuable sources of credible information and are also those who encounter the greatest number of people [90]. Avoid the use of groups or channels that could increase social divisions, such as strongly political or those from a very different socio-economic background [90].
Avoid solely providing information
This is known to be less effective at promoting behaviour change, although knowledge does matter. Giving people information to enable them to understand their behavioural options and the impact of these options on welfare is important, particularly at low levels of knowledge [90].
Narratives
The use of narratives with compelling storylines and characters that relate to the target audiences’ beliefs and values can emotionally engage audiences and motivate change with greater effectiveness than arguments and information [97].
Behaviour change is dynamic
Not all information will be relevant or most effective at the same time or in the same way [96] – adapt your messaging, accordingly, listen to feedback and for change talk, different messaging will work effectively depending on the Stage of Change of your target audience.
Showcase
Use early adopters of the targeted behaviour change to showcase the benefits in your messaging. Showcasing examples from early adopters serves two purposes, it not only shows the target audience that behaviour change is achievable, which creates social norms and overcomes barriers, but also it increases the commitment the adopter has and in doing so increases the chance the behaviour change will be sustained [89]. These early adopters could also assist by disseminating messaging; encouraging peer to peer or community contact is a major influence on adoption of behaviour changes via social diffusion [32].
Feedback
Effective messaging involves receiving feedback from your target audience, which can help guide and adapt your messaging to make it more effective, but you also have a responsibility to feedback to your target audience. Where target behaviours have been adopted feeding back to your community about, for instance, how many people have reduced the wounds in their animals, or have adopted free access to water provision, can serve to increase the likelihood of the behaviour change being sustained in the longer term.
This PLA may be conducted to assess change in a variety of contexts, and this tool includes guidance for two different versions, including: a) changing trends analysis, and b) before and now change analysis.
T11a: Changing Trend Analysis
A changing trend analysis helps the community to identify changing trends over time, for example over generations. Here, a ‘generation’ refers to people born and living around the same time e.g. ‘grandparents generation’, ‘parents generation’, ‘present generation’ etc. Through discussion of present and past situations, this tool enables participants to identify the significant changes that have occurred over time, promoting a greater understanding of the current situation.
Tool purpose:
Time needed:
• To reflect on changes to the lives of animals and animal-owning households within a community over time: - animal populations - reliance and use of animals - animal husbandry and management practices - disease patterns - availability and use of health services and resources - climate or other environmental factors • To generate discussion about significant changes over time and reasons for any perceived negative changes that have occurred
2 - 3 hours
Materials needed:
Cards, pens, markers, coloured powder, chalk, sticks, tree leaves, coloured cards or other locally available materials.
Keyword Search Tags
Project Phase: Initiation Phase
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Development Approach, Community Engagement Approach
Project Support: Participatory Learning and Action Tools
Specific Topics: Animal Husbandry and Management; Animal Welfare, Feelings and Needs; Animal Health and Services; Livelihoods; Vulnerability / Resilience
Changing trend analysis
Figure T11A-1 Changing trend analysis matrix (analysis criteria on vertical axis, generations on horizontal axis)
Figure T11A-2 Changing trend analysis of changes affecting potters and their working animals over four generations
The completed matrix above is the result of a changing trend analysis carried out with a group of animal-owning farmers. It was used as part of a community needs assessment and shared vision. It shows changes in work type and land ownership, quantity, type and cost of animal feed and fodder, grazing land accessibility and availability, average household income and expenditure, availability of and distance to travel for water, human and animal disease prevalence and treatment options, and changing political situation. As a result of this exercise, farmers were able to identify opportunities to mitigate the trends they identified as negatively impacting their lives and the related welfare of their animals.
Changing Trend Analysis
Step 1
Start by explaining that the purpose of the exercise is to understand how the situation in the community has changed over time, and that the group will start with the present and then look at the past. Then ask the group what changes they have experienced in their lives as compared to the past?
Examples:
• Income-generating activities for men and women (separately) • Household income • Household expenditure
Other human aspects, such as food consumption, health and illness, education, and social groups, such as religious groups, self-help & savings/loaning groups, women’s groups. Access & availability of natural resources, such as water, wood, soil, land, etc.
Then ask about changes they have experienced related to their animals.
Examples include:
• Types of animals • Animal work types • Feed practices • Health/illness • Treatment
Ask the community helper to write all identified changes on cards using words or drawings. Make sure that each criterion is specific, for example if participants say ‘water’ clarity if they mean ‘access and availability of water’. Once all changes have been identified, ask participants to select the cards representing the changes which are most important to them. It is the facilitator’s job to ensure that the ones most important to the project are included.
Step 2
Then ask participants to define a timescale for their analysis. It may be based on generations, such as ‘in our grandparents’ time’, ‘in our parents’ time’ and ‘in our time’, or other important activities, events, or years.
Ask the community helper to draw a matrix on the ground and show the chosen time scale on the horizontal axis along the top of the matrix and place the cards with the trend criteria identified in step 1 down the vertical axis (figure T11A-1).
Step 3
Next, explain to the group that they will complete the matrix and decide with the group how they wish to display the situation for each trend criteria. For example, by scoring criteria that can be measured using seeds or stones (0 to 10 for income/expenditure), and/or drawings, symbols, or words for lists of objects etc. As the group defines the scenario for each trend criteria, ask the helper to represent the situation on cards using the chosen means of display.
Step 4
Once the matrix is complete, record the trend analysis by adding a column labelled ‘analyses to the matrix.
Use the following guiding questions to facilitate a discussion about changes over time:
• What are the significant trends or changes that have occurred over time? • Are these trends/changes positive or negative? • What caused these trends/changes to occur?
In the ‘analysis’ column, write whether the change has been positive or negative and have participants expand on the negative changes. Explore the possibility and interest in taking action to address the identified negative changes.
Step 5
The matrix produced should be left with the community. Take a picture or copy and add it to your project action tracker for future reference and to assist with intervention planning.
Facilitator’s Notes: Changing trend analysis
Include a broad cross-section of animal-owning household members of all ages. Invite 10-20 people to participate in this exercise (e.g. youth, adults, elders).
If it is not possible or locally appropriate to do the exercise collectively with both sexes, conduct the exercise separately with men and women. Each may recall different events and changes due to the impacts that resulted in their lives.
Do not lead participants into identifying changes that are not important to them. While asking probing questions, emphasize identifying changes that they perceive to be important. Events or perceived changes should not be included simply because the facilitator inquiries about them.
Clarify any doubts to understand people’s perceptions about changes over time by reaching consensus amongst participants.
Next Steps
As part of a community needs assessment and shared vision, this activity might accompany one or more of the following tools to get a full picture of community dynamics and needs for project planning:
T1 Mapping to understand which resources and services are important to the community.
T2 Mobility Map to understand where people spend most of their time and how long it takes to get places.
T3 Venn Diagram(T3b Social Networking Venn diagram) to identify key individuals, groups and actors perceived to be most important to people and their animals.
T12 Dependency Analysisto understand animal-owning households’ level of dependency on external actors and their implications on resources and services important to ensuring animals’ welfare.
T11b: Before and Now Analysis Changing Trend
The before and now analysis helps the community to identify changes from the beginning to the end of an animal welfare improvement project. This tool may be used to analyse many different aspects of peoples’ lives and the lives of their animals, including changes in people’s reliance/use of animals, animal care practices, animal disease patterns and related impacts on people, availability and use of animal-related health services and resources, climate or other environmental factors affecting animals and people.
Tool purpose:
Time needed:
• To reflect on perceived changes in the lives of animals and animal owning households within the project period • As a learning and reflection tool to assess perceived changes in animal welfare and people’s behaviours as a result of community/project activities • To determine if there are remaining areas of improvement that can be addressed
2 hours
Materials needed:
Cards, pens, markers, coloured powder, chalk, sticks, tree leaves, coloured cards or other locally available materials.
Keyword Search Tags
Project Phase: Exit & Evaluation Phase
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Development Approach, Community Engagement Approach, Societal Outreach and Campaigns Approach
Behavioural Drivers (COM-B): Motivation
Stages of Behaviour Change: Maintenance Stage
Project Support: Participatory Learning and Action Tools, Monitoring and Evaluation
Specific Topics: Animal Husbandry and Management; Livelihoods; Vulnerability/Resilience
Owners know what to look for when animals being treated by LSP
7
LSP access
Previously free services
Availability better – now have LSP phone numbers
7
Beating
Everyone used to beat their animals
No more beating
6
Figure T11B Before and now results from a group of animal owners in Faisalabad, Pakistan
The matrix in figure 11B was produced by a group of animal-owners at the end of a five year project as part of the community’s self-evaluation. They wanted to determine whether the human and animal welfare changes within their community could be sustained over time without the intervention team. The group compared the situation before the intervention to the present state, analysed what the differences meant and whether they thought that they had the skills, knowledge and tools needed to continue to improve on their own.
The group identified six key areas where change has been observed since the beginning of the animal welfare improvement project: food provision (dietary diversity), water provision (daily increase), local service providers’ skills (improvement), owners’ knowledge of good animal welfare, access to local service providers (LSPs) and beating of animals. After scoring the extent to which the majority of the community had made positive change, the group determined that more work was needed to improve LSP skills, owners’ knowledge of animal welfare, access to LSPs and beating of animals. They added the actions that they would take to the community action plan and set a date for the next meeting to focus on beating, which scored the lowest amongst the positive changes.
Before and Now Analysis
Step 1
Start by explaining to the group that they will be reflecting on changes in the lives of animals and their own community members within the project period, comparing how things were before the project to now.
Step 2
Ask the group about the present situation relating to animals’ care, use and their own livelihood status. Have the group compare the present situation to the past.
Ask:
• What are some of the changes that have resulted since project/community action plan activities were implemented? • How have things changed since the beginning of the project?
As the community comes up with the present situation, have the community helper write the changes with words or symbols on cards.
Examples of change categories might include:
• Men’s/women’s work types • Animals’ usage • Household income, expenditure, credit (group formation) • Land access & usage • Animal and human diseases and treatments • Community dynamics (more cohesion amongst group) • Climate change situation (water/feed storage) • Political situation (changes to laws, by-laws) • Environmental change (infrastructure improvements, increased availability of resources)
Please note: If the community comes up with more than 10 changes, ask participants to select the cards representing the 8-10 changes which are most important to them.
Step 3
Ask the community helper to draw a matrix on the ground or large sheet of chart paper. Label three columns ‘change in project’, ‘before’ and ‘now’. Have the helper place the cards representing the most important changes down the first column under ‘change in project’.
Then, facilitate a discussion on how the present situation has changed since the project started. The past and present situations will be defined by the community through this discussion. As each situation is defined for each of the changes, have the community helper write the results on cards and place the past scenario in the ‘before’ column and the present situation in the ‘now’ column.
Step 4
Have the community helper add a fourth column and label it ‘score’. Ask the community to score out of 10 the proportion of the community who meets the ‘now’ criteria. For example, a score of 10 = everyone has changed; 0 = no change.
Step 5
Once the matrix is complete, discuss the results of the activity with the group.
Follow the discussion by asking:
• Does everyone agree with the results? If yes, why? If no, why not? • What needs to change for everyone to achieve the desired result? - Can you achieve the desired results without our intervention? - If yes, do you feel that you have skills, knowledge, and resources to continue without the intervention team?
If the group determines that not all the project objectives have been met and wish to continue with the project, have the community helper add any identified priorities to the community action plan for later discussion and further planning.
Step 6
The matrix should be documented through photos or recreated on paper. Copies should be made and distributed to the group for their records, future reference and/or action planning. Add a copy to your project action tracker.
Facilitator’s Notes: Before and now analysis
If possible, invite 10-15 people to participate in this exercise.
If it is not possible or locally appropriate to do the exercise collectively with both sexes, consider conducting the exercise separately with men and women. Each may recall different change criteria due to the impacts that resulted in their lives.
Do not lead participants into identifying changes that are not important to them. While asking probing questions, emphasize identifying changes that they perceive to be important. Perceived changes should not be included simply because the facilitator inquiries about them.
Have the community’s original shared vision available for reference during the final discussion.
Next Steps
If the community determines it is satisfied with the changes it has achieved:
Consider using T28 Group Sustainability Mapping tool to help participants in planning to sustain their welfare improvements independently once support from the facilitating organization has ceased.
The facilitating organization may use the qualitative before and now findings of project successes to support project reporting or future funding proposals.
If participants indicate the project activities have not achieved the desired changes, update the community action plan and project action tracker with any new agreed actions. Re-evaluate persistent issues using any or all of the following tools:
T21 Animal Welfare Practice Gap Analysis to identify actions people can take, either individually or collectively, to address gaps in animal husbandry and management to improve animal welfare
3.1 Overview of Communities for Animals Approaches for Working with Communities
The communities for animals’ resource provides step by step guidance for three different intensity approaches for working with communities to improve their animals’ welfare based on recommended best practices for promoting behaviour change and the highest level of community participation for lasting change.
The three approaches are further explained below:
Approach 1
INTENSIVE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT APPROACH
The community development (CD) approach is the most participatory, empowering and intensive approach involving.
The core of this approach is to build the capacity of the animal-owning community to act as a collective for sustainable improvement in the welfare of their animals. It requires time, effort and commitment from you and the community. This approach relies heavily on participatory learning and action (PLA) methods to facilitate an inquiry process whereby group members come to identify, understand, and prioritize their animal welfare issues, and discuss and agree on actions to take to address them. With your support, members of the group can work together to:
Improve their understanding of animal welfare and their own animal husbandry and management practices
Improve the quality, accessibility and availability of existing service providers in their area
Make and/or negotiate collective purchases of animal related resources for improved cost savings
Advocate for their needs with a unified voice
Improve access and availability of financial resources if group savings and loan initiatives are undertaken
The existence of a strong, cohesive group is essential to achieving the motivation, knowledge and monitoring mechanisms for mutual learning and peer support for improving the lives of animals. These groups could be newly established or existing groups that can mainstream animal welfare issues and work on animal welfare needs improvement. Co-operation between owners also allows the group to do things that its members could not achieve as individuals, such as buying animal feed in bulk, and advocating for their needs, such as holding service-providers to account for the quality of service they provide. Collective action undertaken by groups is not only beneficial to group members but can potentially benefit individuals within the broader community e.g. promoting quality health services, and securing low cost feed. The CD approach relies on participatory learning and action processes and tools, which are well-aligned with supporting community groups’ progress through the stages of change to achieve and sustain animal welfare improvements on their own.
The CD approach can be used to complement the CE approach when:
Community groups engaged through the CD approach are utilized to provide cross learning opportunities for CE approach sites e.g. Village-to-village visits, competitions.
CE or SOC communities are linked with service providers linked with community groups in CD projects.
Group members are encouraged to continue to act as change agents and agenda setters upon project exit, and model and encourage animal welfare improvements to peers.
In addition, this approach can support the societal outreach and campaigns approach, for example when community-based organizations formed through this approach are consulted to inform campaign development, pilot or communicate outreach messaging.
Approach 2
SEMI-INTENSIVE COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT APPROACH
The community engagement (CE) approach is an intermediate approach, which requires you the community engagement facilitator or a trained community change agent to directly engage with individuals or groups to facilitate behaviour change to improve animal welfare, albeit visits may be less frequent than the CD approach.
This approach does not require advanced facilitation skills and can be delivered through trained community change agents and therefore can support broader reach than the community development approach.
This approach relies heavily on using recommended tools and techniques in effective communication for behaviour change and adult learning theory. This involves consulting communities and listening to understand why they practice behaviours contributing to poor animal welfare and facilitating a process to support building their self-efficacy, knowledge, skills, and motivation to change their behaviours. Ideally, this approach seeks to improve the animal welfare issues and related animal husbandry and management practices prioritized for change by communities, who supports community members’ progress through the stages of change.
On the spectrum of participation, this approach promotes consultation, involvement, and collaboration with communities to support behaviour change for animal welfare improvements. To the extent this approach relies on organized events to raise awareness and build community capacity to improve animal welfare, communities are ideally involved to greatest extent feasible, regardless of whether issues and solutions were collaboratively identified e.g. involving community members in role plays, competitions, or other organized events such as theatre performances etc.
The semi-intensive approach can also be used to make maximum use of the intensive community development initiatives you may be doing, by extending some of benefits of the community development approach to groups in the communities where animals are experiencing poor welfare in areas located nearby groups formed through the community development approach. The aim here would be to create opportunities for cross-site learning between animal owners in intensive and semi-intensive groups, and linking with service providers with whom you are already working in the nearby intensive communities. This is particularly useful when you find you are unable to work intensively with all of the high-risk animals at the same time, either because your organization does not have the capacity or the animal owners are too scattered to initiate group formation for collective action. In particular, the CE approach can be used to complement the CD approach by:
Supporting rapport building and sensitization during initiation phase. For example, working through change agents to permit greater understanding of the local context and community dynamics.
Support sustainability of behaviour change upon withdrawal of project support by the facilitating organization, for example if community change agents continue to provide light touch support to peers to motivate and sustain animal welfare improvements.
Tools and techniques common to this approach can be used by facilitators to support group members through the stages of change.
Approach 3
EXTENSIVE SOCIETAL OUTREACH AND CAMPAIGNS APPROACH
The social outreach and campaigns (SOC) approach is the least intensive approach and involves using persuasive communication techniques and/or demonstrations to provide information and raise awareness of animal welfare issues and best practices amongst the target population.
The extensive approach is best used where there are limits or constraints on the ability of you or your organization to work intensively with communities. This approach reaches target populations using broadcast media (TV, radio), outdoor media (billboards, posters), print media (leaflets/other written materials, newspapers), digital media (internet, mobile phone application) [21], or outreach campaigns and organized events e.g. community fairs, competitions, theatre performances, puppet shows. This approach can also be used to influence target groups indirectly by incorporating animal welfare improvement messages into the work of existing organizations in the area such as schools, religious groups, cooperatives, unions. The extensive approach may be used in areas with high or low animal density. However, welfare messaging is less effective than group formation in changing people’s behaviour towards their animals, so it is most suitable for situations where the risks to animal welfare and the livelihood vulnerability of owners are lower. While this approach typically falls at the lower end of the spectrum of participation with a goal of consulting to involving, participation can be improved by ensuring the animal owning community is involved beyond simply informing them, and ensuring they are consulted or collaborated with when designing and/or implementing such initiatives.
The SOC approach can also be used to complement the CE and CD approaches to:
Rapport building and sensitization during the initiation phase.
Promoting social norms to support desired behaviour change.
The aim when working with communities to improve animal welfare is to do so using the most participatory and empowering approach feasible, in recognition that the promotion of self-efficacy is essential to behaviour change and achieving and sustaining animal welfare improvements. As such, whenever feasible, the general recommendation for making the maximum welfare improvement to the animals in most need (or at highest risk of poor welfare), is to adopt a community development approach as it more participatory, empowering, and likely to result in lasting behavioural change and animal welfare improvements. While our recommendations are based on our experience across several countries and in many environments and livelihoods contexts, there will always be exceptions. For example, a change in local government policy or its implementation following a mass media campaign may have a significant impact on the welfare of animals in high-risk groups. In this case, it is possible for an extensive, indirect societal campaign to lead to improvement in the welfare of high-risk animals.
It should also be noted that in one geographical area, you can work with different groups of animals and their owners using different approaches. In addition, the approaches are not mutually exclusive, and can be used together to complement each other to enhance behaviour change and related animal welfare improvements. The decision on whether and how to work with a group of animal owners should be based on your best judgement and the strategic direction and capacity of your organization. Each approach varies in terms of level of intensity of investment, level of community participation and potential for empowerment, as well as in their ability to successfully address the different drivers of behaviour. It is therefore important to carefully consider which approach is most appropriate for a given context, given the level of risk for poor welfare and potential livelihood vulnerability of the animal owning communities where applicable.
The following table provides an overview of the 3 approaches:
General Characteristics
Extensive Societal Outreach and Campaigns
Semi-Intensive Community Engagement
Intensive Community Development
Potential Reach
Supports broader reach at societal level
Targets individuals at community level, reach dependent on project resources
Targets groups of individuals at reach dependent on project resources
Agenda Setting
Agenda may be set by implementing organization, ideally informed through consultation
Best practice is to focus on animal welfare issues/ behaviour changes most relevant to the community. Tools and techniques common to this approach may however also be used to facilitate improvements in welfare issues identified by the implementing organization
Most participatory and empowering approach that enables the community itself to dictate the agenda, identify their priority issues and solutions, and work together to address them.
Potential likelihood of lasting behaviour change and welfare improvements
Low: typically works best when target communities already have the pre-existing motivation to voluntarily adopt desired behavioural change/improve animal welfare
Moderate-High: typically works best when:
• Communities inform decision making and drive desired changes. • seeks to strengthen the self-reliance and problem-solving capacity of animal owners, carers and/or users • Makes positive use of existing local knowledge, practices and locally available resources • Works through and strengthens existing local service providers as appropriate • Social opportunity and/or physical opportunity constraints do not hinder the adoption of desired behaviours (these are not explicitly addressed by this approach).
High: typically works best when the following cornerstones are put in place:
• strong cohesive group structures • community-based welfare monitoring mechanisms • work through and strengthen existing local service and resource providers to ensure availability of quality, affordable local services and resources • motivated and knowledgeable animal owners, carers, and/or users
• Pre-contemplation: to raise awareness of welfare issues • Contemplation: raise awareness and influence social norms/pressure • Preparation: provide information about how to change • Maintenance: provide reminders to practice already existing changes needed
Pre-contemplation: through awareness raising about welfare issues • Contemplation: raise awareness of benefits of desired behaviours, increase social pressure • Preparation: model desired behaviours, and provide information and skills training • Action: support people to solution their own problems, provide feedback on results, facilitate social support and networking • Maintenance: provide positive reinforcement and reminders
Group members naturally progress through the stages of behavioural change as a result of the facilitated participatory learning and action (PLA) activities • Formation of groups provide opportunity for peer to peer support, and in monitoring of behaviours by others thus contribute to behaviour maintenance.
General Competency Level for Implementing Agents
Skilled community educators and communicators
Skilled trainers and influential communicators
Community facilitators skilled in participatory learning and action methods
Level of Investment (time, resources & capacity)
Low (average: 1 year)
Moderate – High (average: 2-3 years)
High (average: 3-5 years)
COM-B Drivers of Behaviour Typically Addressed by Approach
Capability: psychological (knowledge) and physical (skills) • Motivation: Automatic and reflective • Opportunity: Social opportunity (norms at community level and peer support)
Capability: psychological (knowledge) and physical (skills) • Motivation: automatic and reflective • Opportunity: social opportunity and physical opportunity
Community participation goals most likely to be supported
Table 4: Overview of Community-Based Welfare Intervention Approaches
3.2 Considerations for Selecting an Approach for Working with Communities
Once you have identified the animal populations and areas you wish to target, it is useful to understand the local context when how intensively you are able to engage with communities. The following table provides a sample of key considerations to consider in choosing the appropriate approach. If you’re unsure of which approach is right for you, this resource also includes a quiz to help you decide.
KEY CONSIDERATIONS FOR CHOOSING YOUR APPROACH
Extensive Societal Outreach and Campaigns
Semi-Intensive Community Engagement
Intensive Community Development
• Communities can be reached either directly or only remotely e.g. communities may be geographically spread, there may be organization constraints to reach communities/work intensively. • Low willingness or ability of community to meet regularly. • Insufficient social cohesion/trust to work together for collective action. • Does not require a high level of facilitation skills. • Requires lowest estimated time investment to implement (1 year) • Recommended approach for animals at low risk of poor welfare and amongst populations whose livelihoods are not highly vulnerable. • Targets large amounts of people/broad reach.
• Communities can be reached to meet with them directly. • Moderate-High willingness or ability of community members to meet regularly. • Insufficient social cohesion/trust to work together for collective action. • Requires moderately skilled facilitators and/or trained community change agents. • Requires moderately low time investment to implement (2-3 years) • Recommended approach for animals at low -moderate risk of poor welfare and amongst populations whose livelihoods are not highly vulnerable. • Permits somewhat broad reach through targeted engagement with specific groups/individuals (reach dependent on capacity and resources available)
• Communities can be reached to meet with them directly. • Community members are willing and able to meet regularly, and there is sufficient social cohesion/trust to work together for collective action (e.g. not geographically spread, non-migratory) • Requires a high level of facilitation skills to support the participatory learning and action process. • Requires highest investment of support/time to implement (3-5 years) • Recommended approach when working with highly vulnerable people and animals (animal at high risk of poor welfare) • Due to higher support investment, and targeted engagement of groups - may not permit broad reach (depends on capacity of resources of implementing organization)
Table 5: Overview of Key Considerations for Choosing an Approach for Working with Communities
This tool analyses the household’s dependency on internal actors e.g., household or community, and external actors for resources and services, such as water, feed and/or grazing land, shelter, financial resources, equipment for working animals (e.g., harnesses, carts), grooming supplies, and services, such as animal health service providers. This exercise may also be adapted to assess dependency in contexts where key stakeholders are comprised of only a single group (e.g., women only).
Tool purpose:
Time needed:
• To increase community awareness of their dependencies on external resources and service provision actors and potential implications for promoting animal welfare. • To motivate participants to take action to reduce unnecessary dependency on external actors and improve their self-sufficiency. Activity discussions can motivate collective action and group formation. • To identify project support required to support animal-owning communities in reducing their dependency on external actors. • To monitor changes in reduced dependency on external actors and improvements in self-reliance, which can serve as a proxy indicator of improved resilience/reducing community vulnerability to vulnerable
2-3 hours
Materials needed:
Chalk, coloured dust, stick, stones, pebbles, cards or paper, pens and any other locally available resources to represent service or resources.
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Development Approach
Behavioural Drivers (COM-B): Behaviour Change Diagnosis and Planning, Opportunity, Motivation
Project Support: Participatory Learning and Action Tools, Needs Assessment, Monitoring and Evaluation
Specific Topics: Animal Health and Services, Vulnerability / Resilience, Group Formation / Strengthening
Dependency Analysis
An animal-owning community used this activity to explore their dependency on external actors.
Figure T12a Dependency analysis – blank template
Figure T12b Dependency analysis produced by an animal-owning community
The group identified twelve resource and service providers on whom they felt they had an external dependency. After scoring their level of dependency, they discussed the reasons for the dependencies:
Figure T12c Dependency analysis – reasons for external dependencies and challenges
The group identified opportunities for action to improve animal welfare:
The community requested support to learn how to make first aid kits for their animals, so they could stock basic medicines for treatment in their own village.
Women decided to use their collective savings from their self-help group to purchase a grinder to begin making their own grain and thereby decreasing their cost of animal feed.
Through these actions, the group was able to reduce their vulnerability and improve their self-sufficiency.
Dependency Analysis
Planning phase – Community action planning
Step 1
Start by asking the group to think of all the resources and services they use to care for their animals and have the helper write them down.
Step 2
Ask the community helper to draw a large table, either on the ground or on chart paper. There should be three main columns: ‘Resources & services’, ‘external dependency’ and ‘household/internal’ (See figure T12a).
Step 3
Start analysing external dependency versus household/internal control, by asking the question: do you depend on an outside source to be able to provide this resource or service to your animal? Provide examples as necessary, such as shopkeepers to buy equipment and materials, feed/fodder sellers to buy feed/fodder, farriers to trim hooves. Have the group score the listed resources and services using seeds or pebbles out of a total score of 10.
Please note: If a household needed veterinary treatment for an injured animal, the external control might be scored as 6/10, as they are dependent on the veterinarian to provide treatment. If they do not rely on anyone externally (e.g. they produce all the feed & fodder themselves), the external score is 0 and the household/internal score is 10.
Step 4
Ask participants to analyse their dependency on external actors based on the chart they have produced. Ask the community helper to record the responses or note them yourself. The following questions may be used to guide the discussion:
• Why do you depend on external actors for certain resources or services? (If not already identified through the exercise) - If externally dependent actors have not already been identified through discussions, ask participants to identify them. • How can you improve animal welfare by reducing your dependency on external actors? • Are there collective actions that the community could take to reduce external dependency?
Step 5
After this discussion, ask participants what actions they can take towards making these changes. Help the group to qualify short-term (~3 months) versus long-term actions (more than a year). If there is a long list of issues and associated actions, have the group prioritise just one or two to focus on before the next meeting.
Have the helper record the actions and linked activities in the community action plan. Make sure to include who will monitor it and a realistic timeline. Support the community by linking them to any necessary stakeholders.
Implementation phase - Participatory monitoring
Step 6
Repeat steps 1-3 (above) to assess the changes agreed by the community in step 4 within the community action plan, by comparing with the previous activity outputs (step 5).
Initiate a final discussion using the following questions as guidance:
• Why have changes occurred or not? What are the reasons for changes? • How have changes impacted on animal welfare and their own lives?
Comparing the past results to present situation can generate useful discussion about perceived improvements in animal welfare and related benefits to people’s livelihoods and well-being that have resulted from changes.
Facilitation Notes
Decide the group dynamics ahead of time and whether it would be best carried out with men and women (or other subgroups) separately or in a mixed group. This will depend on your rapport with the community, culture and local gender dynamics.
If conducted separately between men and women, consider bringing the two groups back together at the end of the activity to review the results of each chart and resolve any discrepancies if time allows.
An in-depth analysis of dependency on external actors (step 4) can take considerable time, so discuss this in advance with the group in preparation.
Next Steps
Record the community’s short and long-term actions and related activities to your project action tracker. Revisit the activities in the next meeting to monitor their progress and what further support is required.
T10 Gender Control Analysisis a useful tool for exploring the differences in internal control (within the household) between men and women.
T13 Income, Expenditure and Credit Analysis is a useful follow-up tool for analyzing dependency on external actors for financial resources and motivating participants to take collective action to reduce expenditures or increase access to savings and credit through the formation of self-help groups.
This checklist reflects the key skills and observable behaviours for effectively facilitating community participation and empowerment. While these skills may not all be observed or needed for all activities or contexts in which communities’ are engaged, they represent the core competencies desirable in community facilitators. By harnessing these skills, community facilitators can enable community participants to freely express their opinions, ideas, and concerns, feel valued and respected, and help foster their sense of self-efficacy and ownership over change. This resource can be used as a self or peer assessment tool to help identify capacity strengthening needs and areas of improvement, inform training delivery, and support effective delivery of community development or engagement projects.
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Development Approach, Community Engagement Approach
Project Support: Facilitator Resources, Training
Community Facilitation Skills Checklist
Did the facilitator come prepared to ensure activity/discussion ran smoothly and didn’t waste unnecessary time of participants? e.g. appropriate materials, understanding of the activity
Did the facilitator sit/position themselves same level with participants?
Did the facilitator explain the purpose of the discussion/activity before it started, and give an indication of how long it would last?
Did the facilitator ask if participants had any questions before the session/exercise began?
Did the facilitator their unsolicited opinions/information/answers rather than facilitate participants to discuss, reflect, learn, and identify their own ideas?
Did the facilitator use open ended questions to help participants reflect and identify key learnings for themselves?
Did the facilitator prevent domination of the activity/discussion by one or a few people, and encourage participation/input from others?
Did the facilitator encourage equal participation from men and women and/or people who are marginalized or vulnerable?
Did the facilitator encourage even shy/timid participants to speak/participate?
Did the facilitator summarize the discussion and key learnings at the end?
Did the facilitator ask participants for feedback on their experience of the discussion/activity at the end? This is important to understand the perspective of participants and whether they felt time spent was valuable to them, to enable them to make any improvements in the future.
Did the facilitator make plans for follow up with the participants and/or ensure clear understanding of next steps?
Did the facilitator record the outcome/result of the activity to ensure the community has a copy, and relevant information could be used to inform project planning?
Was the facilitator engaging and respectful from the beginning to end of the visit?
For effective facilitation, the community facilitator must process the following skills: -
Actively listen: Listening is the bedrock of good facilitation skills. Effective listening before and during a session/meeting is necessary to create a tailored and relevant learning process.
Ask questions: Ask questions often during the session/meeting. This is a critical facilitation skill to move individual and group sharing and learning forward. Questions can be framed to accomplish different types of responses, such as to gain or focus attention, solicit information, give information, direct the thoughts of others, and close discussions.
Be comfortable with silence: Often, questions are met with silence. Participants may need time to process the question, formulate a response, or think of other questions. However, silence can also mean that participants are confused or frustrated. With more experience, you can read nonverbal cues and know how best to address silence.
Be flexible: You never know exactly how a session/meeting will go, who will be there, and what unexpected events will arise. Be flexible and willing to shorten an activity, add important language to a definition, or adapt an exercise.
Stay focused on objectives: Select just one or two practices to focus on during a session/meeting, so that you can discuss them in more detail. If participant discussions get off-topic, refocus the group by using phrases such as “this is interesting to explore further at another time, but let’s return to the topic.” It is your responsibility to find the appropriate time to intervene, thank participants, and bring the conversation back to the objective.
Use verbal and nonverbal encouragement: By using verbal and nonverbal cues, you can make participants feel more comfortable with sharing their thoughts and ideas. By nodding your head or agreeing with the participants as they are speaking, they will feel encouraged to continue sharing. It is also helpful to foster participation of shy or modest participants.
Foster respect among participants: Mutual respect and trust between you and the participants and among the participants nurtures the learning process. Effective learning is supported through the constructive and supportive feedback of respected peers.
Use participatory activities: When participants actively engage with others, they build capacities that are more effective, memorable, and easy to apply. Mix activity types so that there are opportunities to work alone, in small groups, and in one large group. Everyone in the room is a student and a facilitator.
Build in time for reflection: The most effective learning takes place through “real world” experiences, including the opportunity to reflect, identify patterns, draw conclusions, and derive principles that will apply to similar experiences in the future. Allow time for participants to share their experiences and/or to respectfully share others’ experiences.
Build in time for forward planning: Participants need time to practice their new skills, but also to consider ways in which to change their practices going forward. When talking about behaviour change, always include time to discuss barriers and enablers.
Seek feedback: This will ensure that participants can freely express how they found the process, and what needs to be improved. A sample feedback form that can be adapted is presented below.
Generate discussion and awareness amongst community members about their animals’ welfare needs and the animal husbandry and management practices that can meet them (refer to Part 1 below).
Support the identification of behaviours that are feasible for communities to adopt to improve their animals' welfare (refer to Part 2 below).
Identify actions communities can take to improve their animals welfare even when they are unable to address identified welfare issues due to barriers they/the project faces in resolving these issues’ root causes (refer to Part 3 below).
This resource demonstrates how the five domains of animal welfare framework can be linked with human behaviours using donkeys as an example. It illustrates its use as a discussion tool in promoting understanding of donkey’s welfare needs, and for identifying behaviours feasible for community members to adopt to improve their donkeys’ welfare. Refer to this illustrative example to support your development of a five domains framework linked with human behaviours that is relevant to the context of your work. The Animals and Communities Learning Module is also a recommended foundational reading for understanding animal welfare and the five domains of animal welfare discussed in this resource.
PART 1: Developing a Five Domains of Welfare Linked to Human Behaviours Discussion Tool
Table 9a provides an illustrative example of a five domains of welfare framework for donkeys, linked with identified potential human behaviours for meeting donkeys’ welfare needs. It is recommended to populate the five domains framework with animal welfare experts knowledgeable in the target species, and then brainstorm a list of human behaviours in consultation with representative members of the animal owning community to ensure they reflect locally appropriate and acceptable behaviours. In addition, animal welfare experts must work hand in hand with community development/engagement teams for these discussions to ensure any potential behaviours identified for meeting animals’ welfare needs support positive life experiences and do not adversely cause harm to animals. Developing a species specific five domains framework linked to the potential human behaviours for meeting an animals’ welfare needs within the domains of nutrition, health, environment and behaviour can support community discussions and awareness raising about animals’ welfare needs and the animal husbandry and management practices recommended to meet them.
Donkey Welfare Needs Associated with Domains of Welfare
Human Behaviours Associated with Meeting Donkey’s Welfare Needs (Ideal Best Practices Appropriate within Local Context)
NUTRITION DOMAIN
a.Food Quantity and Quality · Donkey’s nutritional requirements are met by eating a sufficient quantity and variety of nutritional feeds (e.g. fibre based feeds) for taste and pleasure. · Donkeys feed on small potions and very often. This is essential for health. In a natural situation donkeys eat for 12-16 hours a day to maintain health. With work they likely need additional energy (e.g. feed during rest breaks during work). b.Water Quantity and Quality: · Donkeys have access to and drink sufficient quantity of water while working and at home
a.Human Behaviours Related to Food Quantity and Quality · Provide sufficient quantities of predominantly fibre based feeds (grass/hay) and other suitable locally available forages including straw (e.g. from oat, barley, wheat), and/or soya meal as local availability permits based on recommended proportions for their animals’ size and workload, at intervals throughout their working day (every 3 hours or /2-3 times/day). · Provide donkeys with opportunities to graze on natural forage when they are not working as often as possible when locally available and provide forage (e.g. straw/hay) when they are not working if there is no or limited natural vegetation available to graze. b.Human Behaviours Related to Water Quantity and Quality · Provide freely available clean water to donkeys whenever they are at home not working. · Provide clean water to donkeys throughout their working day (every 3 hours or /2-3 times/day). · Provide more clean water during hot seasons/conditions and adjust working hours to avoid strong heat time
HEALTH DOMAIN
a.Absence of Disease b.Absence of Lameness c.Absence of Preventable Injuries e.g. wounds d.Provide Timely Treatment and Pain Management
a.Human Behaviours Promoting Absence of Disease · Seek yearly health checks from qualified animal health service providers. · Check donkey’s general health and well-being on daily basis. · Take preventative measures against preventable diseases at recommended treatment intervals (e.g. yearly vaccines, parasite control). · Clean manure from donkey resting areas at home on a daily basis to mitigate parasitic diseases spread by flies, and hoof health issues. b.Human Behaviours Promoting Absence of Lameness · Load donkey carts in a balanced way within the reasonable maximum load to prevent lameness · Pick/clean donkey’s hooves daily before and after working to maintain hoof health and comfort during working. · Seek qualified farriery service providers to trim donkey’s hooves at the regularly recommended frequency to promote hoof health and mitigate lameness. · Clean donkey resting areas on a daily basis to ensure substrate is clean and doesn’t accumulate pools of water/urine to mitigate hoof health issues. · Allow the donkey to go more slowly and choose their route if the ground surface is uneven. If an alternative less uneven route is available, select this route. · Allow the donkey to go more slowly and choose their route if the ground surface is uneven. If an alternative less uneven route is available, select this route. c.Human Behaviours Promoting Absence of Preventable Injuries e.g. wounds · Clean equipment which comes into direct contact with donkey’s skin to remove accumulation of dust and prevent painful rubbing and wounds (e.g. pads and harnesses). · Load donkey carts in a balanced way to prevent equipment rubbing from causing wounds. · Use body and verbal communication to guide donkeys instead of whipping to prevent wounds and stress. · Groom animals to remove dust from skin before they work to prevent equipment rubbing and causing wounds. · Use properly fitting, quality equipment purchased from welfare friendly equipment suppliers (e.g. cart, harness, bit makers), and/or made from locally available materials in accordance with recommendations for promoting welfare (e.g. padding made with straw). · Clean donkey’s eyes daily to remove discharge and debris and check for abnormalities to help mitigate eye problems. · Load donkeys with no more than the recommended weight appropriate for the animals’ size to prevent injury. d.Human Behaviours Promoting Timely Treatment and Pain Management · Clean any skin wounds in accordance with recommended guidance as soon as wounds are observed. · Provide rest for donkey to recover from the injury or until wound recovers · Seek timely treatment from qualified animal health service providers when animal is sick or injured. · Donkeys pain and suffering is managed as needed when injuries or illnesses occur through administration of pain medications prescribed and administered as needed by a qualified animal health service professional
ENVIRONMENT DOMAIN
a.Thermal Comfort/Weather Protection · Prevention of adverse physiological reactions from sun/heat and adverse weather conditions b.Safe Environment · Environment where donkey lives/works is safe and does not pose a risk of injury/harm e.g. traffic, edible rubbish, sharp objects, pooling water where animal stands etc. · Environment permits escape/safety from predation c.Space for Exhibiting Natural Behaviours · Sufficient available space for donkeys to freely socialize with others within shelter or outside the shelter, and also to allow them to move away from other animals as needed e.g. to avoid conflict · Donkeys have space to roam and carry out normal grazing/foraging behaviours without competition · Donkeys have space to roll in the dirt and scratch when not working. d.Substrate/Floor Comfort · Substrate where animals rest and stand is free from excrement and/or pooling water
a.Human Behaviours Related to Thermal Comfort/Weather Protection · Provide donkeys with shelter during hot and wet/rainy weather. · Rest donkeys in shade or shelter with appropriate ventilation while on breaks during working hours to protect them from the heat of the sun and other adverse weather conditions. · Provide shelter large enough to accommodate all animals made of locally available and appropriate materials to remain at optimal temperatures that protect their animals from the heat and other adverse weather conditions (e.g. physical building, wall or other man made or natural structure that is appropriately ventilated.) b.Human Behaviours Promoting a Safe Environment for Donkeys · Remove harmful items/hazards from locations where donkeys are left to rest, graze, and in their shelter areas (e.g. edible plastics, sharp objects etc.) to prevent risk of harm. · Use shelter materials which are safe and do not pose a risk to donkey’s safety · When allowing donkeys to freely graze iv. Keep an eye on their movements and ensure they do not wander to rubbish heaps and ingest plastics and/or v. Tether donkeys using recommended welfare promoting methods and equipment to ensure their safety and prevent their ingestion of harmful materials, and change their location frequently so as not to limit the quantity of feed they are able to graze. · Keep to sides of roads to mitigate potential traffic collisions while transporting goods/people. · Equip donkey carts with reflectors to ensure they are visible to traffic while working. · Equip donkey carts with breaking systems to help manoeuvre effectively in traffic while working. · Ensure donkeys are safe from potential theft, predation and road traffic at night by keeping them in their shelters or other designated safe space close to home where they can be heard if distressed. · Ensure donkeys are safe from road traffic accidents at night by using carts with reflectors. c.Human Behaviours Promoting Space for Donkeys to Exhibit Natural Behaviours · Provide daily opportunities for donkeys to freely roam/carry out normal grazing/foraging behaviours without competition whenever safe to do so. · Allocate adequate space as available and daily opportunities while donkeys are not working to: 1) to freely move their limbs in a natural state, 2) rest, access feed, and avoid excrement, 3) socialize with other donkeys if present/feasible, and 4) move away from other animals as needed for their safety/mitigate conflict/competition and/or predation, 5) Roll and scratch without hindrance of equipment. d.Human Behaviours Promoting Substrate/Floor Comfort · Clean donkey shelters/rest area’s at home daily of excrement and any and excess pooling water · Provide deep, soft substrate for comfort and effective rest/sleep.
BEHAVIOUR DOMAIN
a.Ability/agency to interact with other animals · Donkeys can choose to interact and socialize with other donkeys or other species animals (e.g. touch/mutual grooming, play) or remove themselves from the presence of others. b.Ability/agency to Interact with Environment/Exhibit Natural Behaviours · Donkeys carry out normal behaviours such as rolling, lying down/resting, and resting during non-work periods without restriction. · Donkeys choose and carry out to graze, scratch, shelter, roll or explore their physical environment. c.Donkeys Respond Positively to Interactions with Humans e.g. alertness, interest, engagement with people, calm, no fear or stress response, or remove themselves from interacting with humans
a.Human Behaviours Promoting Donkey Agency · Provide donkeys with an ability to choose to move around freely without restriction/restraint while at rest at home. · Allow donkeys to interact with other animals (touch/mutual grooming), and move away from other donkeys if they choose too, including during their work day whenever feasible without hindering their work. · Use a halter when it is necessary to restrict a donkey’s movement. b.Human Behaviours Promoting Donkeys Exhibition of Natural Behaviours · Use recommended welfare friendly methods of restricting donkey’s movement when it necessary to so as to enable them to maintain as much natural movement as possible (e.g. use of harness and rope rather than hobbling) · Allow donkey foals stay with their mothers as much as possible, and provide them with opportunities to socialize and play with other foals if feasible. · Provide donkeys with intervals of rest throughout the day when they are working, and a day of rest at home without working them after lengthy work days to enable them to recuperate. · Provide donkeys with daily opportunities to freely carry out normal behaviours such as rolling, scratching, grazing, and interacting/playing with other donkeys if available while at home and not working. c.Human Behaviours Supporting Positive Interactions with Donkeys · Calmly approach and speak with donkeys to keep them calm and prevent stressful human interactions which cause them to exhibit fear or aggression. · Use body language communication or sound cues and/or as a ‘firefighting’ immediate option only, the presence of soft sticks which are unable to inflict pain can be used as a visual encouragement or light tap to inspire Donkeys to move as needed rather than whipping them which can cause them fear and stress. · Provide information to a handler or any third party how their donkeys are trained and respond to cues · Owners seek to develop owns skill to train and communicate with their donkeys in a compassionate way or ask for support from animal welfare organizations to build their own skills.
¯ DONKEY’S MENTAL STATE WHEN NEEDS MET/HUMAN BEHAVIOURS ADOPTED ¯
Free from fear, distress, anxiety Feels comfortable Expresses happiness and enjoys pleasure Feels Secure, Protected and Confident
Table 9a. Example Five Domains of Welfare Framework for Donkeys Linked with Human Behaviours
PART 2: Using Root Cause Analysis and Five Domains Framework linked with Human Behaviours to Identify Feasible Animal Welfare Issues and Actions for Addressing Them
The steps below outline a process which can be used or adapted to support the identification of behaviours that are feasible for communities to adopt to improve their animals welfare through use of a root cause analysis and species specific five domains of welfare linked with human behaviours.
First identify the animal welfare issues prevalent in the community. Consider using a participatory animal welfare assessment process, ideally involves members of the animal owning community whenever feasible to do so. The T22 Animal Welfare Transect Walk tool can be used to support this process.
Next, seek to understand the root causes of identified animal welfare issues in collaboration with community members or representative key informants from the animal owning community. Consider using the T25 Problem Animaltool to support undertaking a participatory root cause analysis of identified animal welfare issues. An example of root cause analysis for animal welfare issues identified through a participatory animal welfare assessment are illustrated in Figure 9a below.
Once a root cause analysis of welfare issues has been conducted, facilitate a discussion with community members or representative key informants from the animal owning community to the animal welfare issues which may be feasible and of interest for community members and the project to work together to address based on an understanding of their root causes. Seek agreement on the welfare issues which will be prioritized for improvement, and use a species specific five domains framework linked with potential human behaviours (refer to example in Table 9A above) to further discuss and identify the behaviours feasible for community members to adopt to address these welfare issues. Consider inviting animal welfare experts to the discussion to ensure any behaviours identified do not adversely harm animals and are likely to result in desired animal welfare improvements. Refer to the following considerations to help the selection of target behaviours:
How likely it is the behaviour can be changed (when considering the likelihood of change being achieved, think about the barriers and motivators to change in terms of capability, opportunity, and motivation to change of those who perform the behaviour)
How much of an impact adopting the behaviour would have on improving the overall welfare state of the animal in terms of the five domains.
How likely it is that the behaviour (or group of behaviours) will have a positive or negative impact on other, related behaviours.
How easy it will be to measure the behaviour.
Can the project support communities in adopting this behaviour given its available resources and implementation capacity e.g. if the project is being implemented through trained community change agents, can they effectively support communities in adopting this behaviour as needed?
Figure 9a. Example Root Cause Analysis of Donkey Welfare Issues
Table 9b below is an example of the target donkey welfare issues and behaviours identified as feasible for a community and project to address based on the results of the root cause analysis in Figure 9a. These discussions included representative community key informants and change agents, as well as animal welfare experts who helped ensure any behaviours identified support animal welfare improvements and do no harm.
Identified Donkey Welfare Issues Feasible to Address Based on Root Cause Analysis
Identified Behaviour Change Priorities for Addressing Priority Donkey Welfare Issues (Feasible and Appropriate within Local Context)
NUTRITION DOMAIN
a. Donkey is malnourished/skinny due to insufficient provision of quality and quantity of feed - Not feasible to address based on root cause analysis
Not feasible to address at this stage.
HEALTH DOMAIN
a. Excessive eye discharge b. Back Wounds c. Hindquarter wounds d. Overgrown hooves - Not feasible to address based on root cause analysis
a.Human Behaviours for Addressing Eye Discharge · Clean donkey’s eyes daily to remove discharge and debris and check for abnormalities to help mitigate eye problems. · Avoid as far as possible environments with air contamination e.g. during rest if it is not possible to avoid during work · Contact animal health practitioner if one eye is being different to the other eye, swelling, closed eye, thick and have coloured discharge and there is obvious change to the colour of the eye. · Avoid using blinkers and decorative items that dangle around the eyes b.Human Behaviours for Addressing Back Wounds · Wipe down and/or shake out any equipment to remove any accumulated mud or dirt before or after each use to prevent excess accumulation of dirt causing rubbing. · Groom animals carefully to remove dirt and dust from skin before they work to prevent equipment rubbing and causing wounds. · Use back padding under any loads whenever donkeys are using packs or to prevent carts from rubbing, in accordance with welfare promoting instructions for making such back pads using locally available materials (instructions to be provided by project). · Gentle cleaning with clean cloth to clean the wound. · Give the donkey to rest to recover from the wound c.Human Behaviours for Addressing Hindquarter Wounds · Rest animals from work to enable wounds to heal. · Use body and verbal communication or sound cues and/or as a ‘firefighting’ immediate option only and once wounds are healed use soft sticks which are unable to inflict pain as a visual encouragement or a light tap to inspire donkey’s to move as needed rather than whipping them which can cause them fear and stress (Request for a Compassionate Handling training to be provided by an animal welfare organization).
ENVIRONMENT DOMAIN
n/a – no issues identified from transect walk
n/a – no issues identified from transect walk
BEHAVIOUR DOMAIN
n/a – no issues identified from transect walk
· n/a
Table 9b: Priority Animal Welfare Issues and Actions for Addressing Them
PART 3: Using a Five Domains of Animal Welfare Framework Linked with Human Behaviours to Improve Animal Welfare When Unable to Address Root Causes of Animal Welfare Issues
While identifying existing animal welfare issues is a recommended step in community animal welfare improvement projects, it is not uncommon for community members or a project to be constrained in their ability to address the root causes of such issues. For example, it may not be feasible to resolve animal welfare issues whose root cause is communities’ lack of access or availability of financial resources using a Community Engagement Approach where trained community change agents are the primary implementing agents tasked with supporting community behaviour change at the individual household level. When resolving identified animal welfare issues is not feasible, opportunities to increase animals’ positive life experiences nevertheless exist.
Using a species specific five domains framework linked with associated human behaviours, you can facilitate discussions with community members and encourage them to identify and adopt other feasible actions/behaviours to improve the overall net gain in animals’ welfare even when identified welfare issues cannot be addressed. Using this resource can support flexible, solution oriented discussions with communities for improving animal welfare which are cognizant of contextual constraints, and mitigate promotion of unobtainable welfare standards that are not feasible to achieve. Improving animal welfare is more about creating positive change in animals’ welfare status through increasing animals’ positive life experiences so as to tip the balance between negative and positive life experiences. While addressing identified animal welfare issues is always a goal, you can still achieve an overall net gain in animal welfare even when such issues remain unaddressed. Figure 9b below illustrates the concept of this balance of life experiences.
Figure 9b: Balance of Life Experiences (adapted from [2])
To improve animal welfare it is important to seek to understand and assess animals both positive AND negative experiences within each domain and consider how an animal’s experiences within each of the four domains may be contributing to its mental state AND influencing its overall welfare. Thus, in addition to the identified donkey welfare issues (negative experiences) and associated human behaviours that can be adopted to address them which were identified in Table 9b above, Table 9c below provides examples of additional feasible actions identified in discussion with community members to improve their donkeys’ overall positive life experiences identified by using table 9a to generate awareness and discussion amongst community members. This demonstrates how this facilitator resource can be used to promote animal welfare improvements through focusing on ways to promote positive life experience rather than solely focus on addressing welfare issues. Without it, these opportunities for improving donkeys welfare through enhancing positive life experiences would not have been identified through the transect walk alone, which focussed more on assessing animals’ welfare to identify issues. It is recommended to prioritize elements within each of the domains instead of focussing on all efforts for improving an animals’ welfare within fewer domains to the extent feasible. As such, for this exercise, communities were encouraged to identify ways they could improve their animals’ positive life experiences within the domains of environment, behaviour and nutrition since all of their previously identified issues and behaviours were associated within the one domain of health.
Donkey Welfare Needs/Positive Life Experiences
Identified Potential Behaviour Change Priorities to Improve Donkey’s Welfare (Feasible and Appropriate within Local Context)
NUTRITION DOMAIN
a. Donkeys feed on small portions and often
Human Behaviours Promoting Improved Donkey Feeding a. Provide donkeys with feed and water 2-3 times a day throughout their working day (every 3 hours or 2-3 times/day).
HEALTH DOMAIN
N/A – priority donkey welfare issues already identified for health domain (refer to table 9b)
N/A - human behaviours to address priority donkey health issues already identified (refer to table 9b)
ENVIRONMENT DOMAIN
a.Thermal Comfort/Weather Protection · Prevention of adverse physiological reactions from sun/heat and adverse weather conditions b.Space for Exhibiting Natural Behaviours · Donkeys have space to roll in the dirt and scratch when not working.
a.Human Behaviours Related to Thermal Comfort/Weather Protection · Rest donkeys in shade or shelter while on breaks during working hours to protect them from the heat of the sun and other adverse weather conditions. b.Human Behaviours Promoting Space for Donkeys to Exhibit Natural Behaviours · Provide adequate accessible space for donkeys to roll, scratch, and lay down without hindrance of equipment when not working.
BEHAVIOUR DOMAIN
a.Ability/agency to exhibit natural behaviours/interact with other animals · Donkeys can choose to interact with other animals of their species (e.g. touch/mutual grooming, play) or remove themselves from the presence of other animals. · Donkeys can choose to carry out normal behaviours such as rolling, lying down/resting, and resting during non-work periods. b.Donkeys Respond Positively to Interactions with Humans
a.Human Behaviours Supporting Donkeys Exhibition of Natural Behaviours · Provide donkeys with daily opportunities to freely carry out normal behaviours such as rolling, scratching, grazing, and interacting/playing with other donkeys (if present) while at home and not working. b.Human Behaviours Supporting Positive Interactions with Donkeys · Use communication or sound cues and/or the presence of soft tipped sticks which can be used as a visual encouragement or light tap to inspire Donkey’s to move as needed rather than whipping them which can cause them fear and stress (also supports addressing whipping wounds under health domain).
Table 9c: Additional Actions for Increasing Positive Life Experiences of Donkeys to Improve their Overall Welfare Status
A credit analysis examines existing sources of income, expenditure and credit. This motivational tool is primarily used during planning to generate interest in establishing a self-help or savings group to promote collective action. If group savings is not appropriate or part of the local culture, this tool is great for promoting the benefits of collective action to reduce common expenditures, such as animal feed or veterinary treatments.
Tool purpose:
Time needed:
• To generate interest in establishing a self-help group through collective regular savings and loaning activities. • To identify the coping strategies undertaken to meet household and animal needs. • To understand the advantages and disadvantages of credit sources and their impacts on animal welfare and people’s livelihoods. • To identify opportunities for collective action to reduce common community-wide expenditures. • To support a gender analysis during a participatory needs assessment to identify perceived differences in income, expenditure and credit between men and women.
1.5 - 2 hours
Materials needed:
Chart paper, cards & pens, or coloured chalk and other local resources that represent each source of income, expenditure and credit.
Specific Topics: Livelihoods, Group Formation / Strengthening
Income, expenditure & credit analysis
Figure T13 Analysis of income, expenditure and credit by animal owners
The figure above (T13) shows an income, expenditure and credit analysis carried out by members of animal-owning households in a community. In this example, participants were asked to allocate an estimated annual amount per household for each source of income and expenditure. They also identified where they were able to find credit when income is less than expenditure.
The diagram illustrates:
Most animal owners earn their main income through work with their animals using plough and traction ($800).
Additional income comes from agricultural labour ($500), selling animals ($400), manual labour ($100) and selling eggs ($50).
The major household expenditures are household medical treatment and health care ($700), animal feed and fodder ($600), human food ($500) and animal health treatments ($500).
Other household expenses include children’s education ($400), and animal’s equipment ($200) and alcohol and cigarettes ($150).
Many animal owners are dependent on credit from employers, the local money lender, relatives or the egg buyer.
The discussion during this exercise led the group to start their own savings fund in order to support their animal-related and household needs and reduce their dependency on high interest loans from money lenders.
Income, Expenditure and Credit Analysis
Step 1
Start by explaining the purpose of the activity and ask a community helper to draw a large triangle, either on the ground or on a large piece of chart paper. Label the left side ‘income’ and the right side ‘expenditure’. Draw arrows facing into the triangle for income and out of the triangle for expenditure (see figure T13).
Step 2
Ask participants about their various sources of annual household income. Encourage them to describe all the types, not only cash, but payments in kind (such as food, handmade goods, or other resources). Urge participants to recall both regular (daily, weekly, monthly) and seasonal income. If this activity is conducted by men and women separately, make sure that they include income from all family members. Have the helper write each source of income on individual cards using words or symbols and have participants align the cards along the outer left-hand side of the triangle.
Step 3
Have the group discuss and agree on their common major household expenditures, including animal-related expenditures. Remind them to include big items that might not be regular expenditures, such as household construction and renovations, gifts for family members and wedding expenses. Have the community helper write each source of expenditure on individual cards using words or symbols and ask participants to place the cards along the right-hand side of the triangle.
Step 4
Ask the participants to provide an estimated average annual amount for each source of income and have the helper add the amount to each card. Then, ask the group to provide an estimated average annual amount for each household expenditure and have the helper add the amount to each card.
Step 5
Total the average annual income with the participants and have the helper write it on the triangle in the bottom left-hand corner (below all the income source cards).
Total the average annual expenditure with the participants and have the helper write it on the triangle in the bottom right-hand corner (below all the expenditure cards) (see figure T13).
Step 6
Once income and expenditure have been totalled, compare the total average income with total average expenditure. If expenditures appear to be more than income, ask the participants what they do to cover the costs of expenditures that income does not cover. What do you do during a period of emergency or when unexpected costs arise (health care, gifts, ceremonies, etc.) to meet the needs of your households and animals? (Coping strategies)
Step 7
Ask participants to describe and list their various sources of credit. Have the helper write the credit sources on cards and place them along the bottom of the triangle (see figure T13).
Participants may identify reasons for selecting specific sources of credit, such as:
• ease of access • interest payments • loan repayment terms • threats and pressure (from family/friends) • the need for a guarantor • collateral and mortgage terms
Step 8
Once the triangle is complete, ask the group:
• How can you reduce common expenditures? • What are some potential collective action activities? • Why do you prefer one source of credit over another? • What are the negative implications of continuous borrowing on your own lives and your animals’? • Are there alternative options that would have less consequences or impacts?
Step 9
Record any actions the group agrees (e.g. establishing a self-help group, starting their own savings group, opportunities to take collective action to reduce expenditures) to the community action plan. For those interested in setting up a savings and/or self-help group, set a date and time to meet soon to ensure that interest is not lost.
Record actions to be taken by the team in your project action tracker and support the community by linking them to any necessary stakeholders.
Facilitator’s notes: Income, expenditure and credit analysis
The primary purpose of this tool is to generate interest in group formation. If you know that a savings/self-help group already exists, it might be more appropriate to use another tool such as T9 Matrix Ranking and Scoring (T9c credit matrix ranking and scoring) for group strengthening or T15 cost-benefit analysisto initiate collective action.
For some groups this might be a sensitive discussion. Trust is important between community members before they will have an open discussion on income, expenditure and credit, thus, it is essential to have a good understanding of the trust between participants before conducting this activity.
Decide the group dynamics ahead of time and whether it would be best carried out with men and women (or other subgroups) separately or in a mixed group. This will depend on your rapport with the community, culture and local gender dynamics.
If conducted separately between men and women, consider bringing the two groups back together at the end of the activity to review the results of each chart and resolve any differences if time allows.
If it is not appropriate to conduct this activity with men and women together in the local context, or if it could prohibit participation and freedom of discussion, consider conducting this activity separately.
This tool may support gender analysis when conducted separately with men and women, by enabling communities to identify and compare differences in perceptions of sources of income, expenditure and credit, total estimated amounts of each and the advantages and disadvantages of each source of credit. The facilitator job is to help participants explore whythese differences exist, how they help or hinder them from meeting their own and their animals’ needs and identify actions to address the differences.
Next Steps
This tool is predominantly used for action planning. Consider following this activity up with another credit analysis tool, such as T9 Matrix Ranking and Scoring (T9c credit matrix ranking and scoring) for group strengthening or T15 Cost-Benefit Analysisto initiate collective action.
Once the group has identified potential for alternative credit options, follow up with them to see if they any require further support. This might include linking the group to other programmes, or guiding them to the appropriate organisations, agencies, schemes etc.
If the group has shown interest in forming a self-help or savings group for collective action, follow this activity up with a session on forming and sustaining a group. Do not let much time pass between this activity and the next meeting or else the community might lose the momentum and enthusiasm for forming a group.
If the community has only come up with sources of income, this might be an opportunity to explore other income generation activities with the group if there is interest.
The initiation phase is about building rapport within the target community, understanding the local context, animal welfare issues and community interests and dynamics, as well as gauging interest and motivation in engaging with your animal welfare intervention project.
Purpose:
The purpose of this to provide the practitioners with the direction in terms of the information needed for the initiation phase; and where to collect the information. Including the tools that can assist with collecting the information.
Keyword Search Tags
Project Phase: Initiation Phase
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Development Approach, Community Engagement Approach, Societal Outreach and Campaigns Approach
Behavioural Drivers (COM-B): Behaviour Change Diagnosis and Planning
10a. Overview of Useful Information to Collect During Initiation Phase
The initiation phase is about building rapport within the target community, understanding the local context, animal welfare issues and community interests and dynamics, as well as gauging interest and motivation in engaging with your animal welfare intervention project. The following table provides an overview of key understandings you should seek through activities implemented during the initiation phase, as well as potential sources for obtaining relevant information.
Useful Information
Why Important
Sources of Information
Demographic Features: gender, age, literacy, income, social status, religion, population density
People’s circumstances can shape their behaviours, as well as inform which strategies may be most effective for engaging them.
Information collected during initial scoping phase
Daily Routines: where and when most animal owners, carers, and users (of working animals) spend their time during the days
How people spend their time can provide insights on what influences their behaviour and the welfare of their animals, as well as indicate their availability for engagement.
Observations, key Informant interviews, focus group discussions (FGD), survey
Common Desires/Priority Motivations: What are men and women’s common desires for their lives and the lives of their animals/what motivates them? Are there key concerns or issues which preoccupy their thinking? e.g. good income, health, having good community status, been seen as good according to their religion, or ensuring children’s education, having productive animals? And what benefits do they feel their animals contribute to their lives?
This can help us understand people's value, or issues they face, as these are likely to influence people’s motivations and behaviours [72]. Understanding this is useful to framing communications in ways that motivate and support behavioural change to improve animal welfare.
Existing Behaviour: What are men and women’s existing animal use, care, and management practices and what do they like/dislike about them? What animal related resources and services do men and women rely on? What are their priority challenges or concerns related to their animals, and animal related services and resources?
Understanding people’s current animal related practices/behaviours can help us understand what may be leading to observed animal welfare issues and who may be responsible. It is also helpful to understand what people appreciate and don’t about their current practices, so we can gauge perceived benefits and potential barriers to change. This is helpful to understanding whether and how the desired behaviours the project may promote could be perceived as more beneficial and worth practicing by target groups and enable communications to be framed accordingly where possible. In addition, understanding their priority animal welfare concerns, can help you gauge issues people may be more highly motivated to address and indicate potential useful starting points.
Observations, key Informant interviews, in depth focus group discussions, surveys
Animal Related Resources and Service Providers: What animal related resource and services providers exist within the community and what are the available resources and services they can provide?
Understanding what animal related resource and service providers exist within the community can be useful to understanding who you can potentially work with, what resources and services are available, and enable you to understand which may be underutilized based on insights from communities about those which they rely on. Understanding what animal related resources and services are available may be helpful to understanding possible solutions to animal welfare issues
Observations, key Informant interviews, in depth focus group discussions, survey
Influential People/Groups: what people influence men and women’s animal husbandry and management practices? Whose opinions and knowledge do they value and are likely to listen to generally, as well as in relation to their animals?
Helpful to identifying potential partners, groups, and individuals influential within the community who the project can engage as respected leaders or messengers or modellers of change, and/or whose support can be harnessed to promote change. May also help you to understand whose opinions or influence may pose a challenge to people’s adoption of desired changes.
Community Dynamics: what aredifferent members of the animal owning community’s expected social roles, how do they interact and collaborate or don’t amongst and between groups, who is perceived to hold power, and which individual or groups experience discrimination and/or greater opportunities or hardships because of their social status or other demographic characteristics,
Communities are not homogeneous, and it’s important to understand different members of the animal owning community in terms of their expected social roles, how they interact and collaborate, or don’t, amongst and between groups, who is perceived to hold power, and which individual or groups experience discrimination and greater opportunities or hardships because of their social status or other demographic characteristics. This will enable you to better understandintersectionality, and plan and design your project in ways that seeks to promote equality and mitigate the potential of your project to engage in exploitative practices which reinforce discrimination, as well as which may elicit mistrust in the project. This will also help your project allocate appropriate resources (human, financial, etc.) for your project in a strategic way.
Observations, key Informant interviews with organizations operating in the area or other knowledgeable stakeholders/potential change agents.
10b. Example Focus Group Discussion Questions Supporting Initiation Phase Assessments
A focus group discussion (or FGD) is a qualitative research method in the social sciences that employs the use of semi-structured interview led by a skilled moderator to elicit responses and generate discussion among the participants about a subject of interest within a given time.
Focus group discussions should be used when you need to understand an issue at a deeper level than you can access with a survey. They are helpful for adding meaning and understanding to existing knowledge or getting at the “why” and “how” of a topic.
Important guide to follow when designing your FGD questions.
Keep the number of questions reasonable (under 10, if possible). This prevents the participants from getting confused or worn out by a long discussion.
Keep the questions simple and short. FGD participants won’t get the chance to see the questions like in a survey.
Ensure that the wording on questions is clear. Otherwise, participants will end up discussing the question itself, rather than what the question was trying to ask.
Be careful that questions about sensitive issues or topics are asked carefully. Otherwise, the FGD will stop just because people are too embarrassed to answer.
Make sure that questions are worded in a way that cannot be answered with a simple “Yes” or “No” answer. Using words like “Why” and “How” will help elicit better responses from participants.
Question Types
There should be three types of questions in a focus group discussion:
Probe questions: these introduce participants to the discussion topic and make them feel more comfortable sharing their opinion with the group.
Follow-up questions: delve further into the discussion topic and the participants’ opinions.
Exit question: check to ensure that you didn’t miss anything.
Example
Say that you run two different animal welfare programs and you’d like to know why programme A sees better attendance than Program B. You could use the following questions to explore this issue:
Probe Questions:
How familiar are you with our programs?
How often do you attend our programs?
What is your favourite program?
Follow-Up Questions:
What is your favourite and least favourite aspects of Program A?
What is your favourite and least favourite aspects of Program B?
What influences whether you attend a program?
What influences whether your friends attend a program?
If we were to close a program, which one should we close and why?
Exit Question:
Is there anything else you’d like to say about our programs?
