Specific Topics: Outreach and Communications; Compassion/Empathy; Community Change Agents
2a. Promoting Effective Interpersonal Communication through Emotional Intelligence
The most important skills that can improve a community facilitator’s ability to be a catalyst for change and influence behaviour change are effective inter-personal communication skills, which are comprised by the skills people use to exchange information, feelings, and meaning through verbal and non-verbal messages.
Emotional intelligence (EI) is a foundational competency in effective inter-personal communication defined as the ability to recognize and manage our own feelings, and recognize and respond effectively to those of others [94]. Emotions are one of the aspects to lookout under automatic motivation as positive or negative feelings can either encourage or discourage a particular behaviour. Emotional intelligence can enable community facilitators to respond to challenging situations in ways which improve rather than hinder collaborations and better support communities’ in changing their behaviour.
EI is comprised of four competency domains related to understanding and managing one’s self (personal competencies), and relationships with others (social competencies) including: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and social skills. The figure below illustrates emotional intelligence in terms of these four competency domains, demonstrating how they influence each other and ultimately the community facilitators’ ability to be successful in their work [94, 95]. Emotional self-awareness is a precursor to the other three competencies, as the more we are aware of our feelings the easier they are to manage and in turn effectively interact with others.
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE COMPETENCIES AND THE WORK OF COMMUNITY FACILITATORS - Diagram adapted from [95, 94, 96]
2b. Transactional Analysis - Using Human Psychology to Improve Communications
Effective interpersonal communication and relations can be improved through an understanding of the concept of transactional analysis (TA) [97]. Transactional analysis is psychological model developed by Eric Berne to make sense of how people interact with one another (referred to as transactions) based on their feelings influencing their actions [98]. TA has proven a useful method for increasing emotional intelligence by helping one become aware of one’s emotions, exert greater self- control which are essential to ensuring the effectiveness of communication and associated positive interactions with others [98].
The key assumptions of TA are as follows [99, 98]:
People are OK: all people are good and worthy when they enter the world.
All people can think: every person has the capacity to think, and are therefore responsible for the decisions they make.
All people can change: as everyone is responsible for their decisions, change is possible and decisions need not be determined by one's past.
Key Influences on Inter-personal Communications
1. Ego States
TA defines the different “ways of being” or “personalities” people adopt in their interactions with others, and refers to these as ego states. Our interpersonal communications can be classified as falling into one of the three following ego states: the child ego state, the parent ego state, and the adult ego state [98]. Each of these ego states are comprised of consistent feelings and behaviours, and these activate (unconsciously) in our interactions. By enabling you to identify which ego state is activated when interacting with others, TA can help better manage your emotions and respond in ways which promote collaboration and improve your ability to influence behaviour change in others. The three ego states of parent, adult, and child are further described below [100]:
Parent Ego State: the parent ego state is rooted in the past, and contains the attitudes, feelings, and behaviours taught/learned fromour parents or other significant authority figures. It involves responding as one of our parents would have: saying what they would have said, feeling what they would have felt, behaving how they would have behaved. It can take one of two forms: 1) the critical parent (criticizing, censoring, punishing authority-based judgments or rules e.g. “You should”, “You must”), and 2) the nurturing parent (protective, loving, and encouraging). The parent state can negatively hinder our interactions when experienced as being judgemental, dominant, punishing, condescending, smothering, overprotective or stifling. Other examples which may indicate the unhelpful parent ego state is activated include: impatient body language, anger, judgemental comments, criticisms, providing unsolicited advice, ordering others, raised eyebrows, arms folded across chest, blaming others.
The concepts of ego states and life positions are discussed below as they are key influencers on our inter-personal communications.
Adult Ego State: the adult ego state is the only ego state rooted in the present and contains the attitudes, feelings and behaviours we have learned to help us interpret reality based on our rational, objective appraisals. A person behaving or interacting with their adult ego will properly seek information and use their reasoning skills to evaluate it before making decisions. Interacting from the adult ego state is always the ideal as it promotes clear, effective communication because responses are logical and appropriate to the situation or present, and this ego state is able to keep the parent and child ego state under control. A good way to know if your adult ego state is activated is to examine whether your questions/comments are fuelled by compassion and curiosity, or irritable emotions, the desire to blame, criticize, and/or prove a point. Other example indicators the adult ego state is activated may include: being/feeling relaxed/composed, calm, open, reasoned statements, unemotional, thoughtful, leaning in to listen/look, clear confident tone, taking responsibility, focused on facts not opinions, discussing alternatives or results, seeking information, evaluating pros-and-cons, questioning: “why?, how?, who?, what?, where?, how?”
Child Ego State: the child ego state is rooted in the past, and contains the attitudes, feelings, and behaviours we feltin our childhood related to avoiding perceived painful experiences or pursuing pleasurable experiences. It involves responding instinctually in the present as we would have as a child seeking to meet its basic needs: saying what we would have said, feeling what we would have felt, and behaving how we would have behaved as a child. The child ego can present in one of two forms: 1) the adapted/rebellious child (defiant, complaining, compliant, and/or passive). 2) free child (curious, creative, spontaneous, affectionate and fun-loving). The child ego state may negatively hinder interactions when anger or despair dominates an individuals’ reasoning. Other indicators the unhelpful child ego state is activated may include: feeling/being resistant, defensive, uncompromising, withdrawn, disengaged, helpless, dejected, sullen, manipulative, subservient, obstructive, destructive, wanting one’s own way, feeling like a victim/persecuted, shoulder shrugging, irritable, monotone, fidgeting.
In TA, interactions are referred to as complementary when the ego states of the interacting parties are the same/sympathetic to one another (e.g. child-child, adult-adult, parent-parent). This means there is alignment between what an individual says and expects to receive as a response, and what they actually receive as a response, and results in more clear and effective communication [100]. Alternatively, when transactions occur between individuals communicating with each other from different ego states (e.g. parent-child, adult-parent etc.) they are referred to as crossed transactions, which can lead to breakdowns in communication, misunderstanding, and associated conflict.
Examples 1 (top) and 2 (middle)
Examples 3 (left) and 4 (right)
Examples of complementary transactions:
Parent-Parent (See Example 1): “What a terrible meeting!” - “One of the worst I’ve been to!”
Adult-Adult (See Example 2): “I noticed you weren’t able to take action since we last spoke, can we talk about what’s been going on for you?” - “You’re right, I’ve been really busy with illness in the family, however plan to take action now that things have calmed down”
Child-Child “I’m not going to try these recommendations as the people who made them don’t even understand our lives!” - “Yeah, I’m not going to bother trying any of them either.”
Examples of crossed transactions:
Parent-Child (See Example 3): “You should be careful or your animal won’t be able to continuing to earn money for you” - “What do you care?”
Adult-Child (See Example 4): “We haven’t spoken for a while and I’d be interested to hear your experiences trialling the solutions we discussed when we last met.” - “I feel like giving up as nothing is working!”
Adult-Parent: “I noticed you attended the training, what were key learnings for you?” - “They should have provided that training ages ago when we really needed it!”
The goal of TA is to have all parties involved converse in the idealized state of adult-adult because these are the only interactions informed by rational appraisals of reality in the present (vs feelings or learnings from the past), and thus result in clear and effective communication, decision making, and problem solving. However, as we go about our daily lives, we move from one ego state to another in reaction to different interactions without any thought, and our (perceived) ego state can also elicit different ego states in others that can either help or hinder communications and relations. Operating in the idealized adult-adult state can therefore be challenging, particularly when we are faced with emotionally difficult situations or interactions with people who have not yet developed an ability to manage their emotions and behaviours.
The following example illustrates how ego states inform the nature of our transactions:
When a community member feels like their needs are not being met e.g. does not feel understood, or like they are being judged by the community facilitator, their “child” ego state of mind may intervene to influence their interaction causing them act uncooperatively in defiance. This child ego state response may in turn arouse frustration in the facilitator, arousing an annoyed “parent” ego state response which can further break down relations as a sense of disdain takes over their interactions. This example illustrates how the parent and child ego states interact to create crossed transactions and undesirable outcomes. However with an understanding of TA, the community facilitator can identify ego states activated in themselves and others, and manage their emotions to effectively communicate from their adult ego state without undermining relations with community members that can hinder desired behaviour change and animal welfare improvements.
2. Life Positions
In addition to the ego states that define our personality state in any given moment, TA also defines “life positions” which are the basic beliefs about ourselves and others which act as the frame of reference through which we experience our interactions with others [101]. These beliefs refer to our sense of feeling “OK or “not-OK” about ourselves and those we’re interacting with, and ultimately influence the nature of our social interactions. In this context, being “OK” refers the innate value, goodness, worth, and equal right to live and meet needs we perceive ourselves and other parties in the interaction to have. The TA model assumes that everyone is born viewing themselves and others as “OK”; however it also recognizes our childhood experiences shape can change our perception of ourselves and/or others as “not OK”. Life positions therefore may change and adapt throughout life as we learn in develop, and can also be influenced by our/others’ states of being (ego states). As we interact with others, we take one of four life positions, which in turn result in one of four specific social interaction reactions or outcomes as illustrated in the below matrix and described further below [102, 99, 103, 101]:
Life Positions and their Influence on Social Interaction Outcomes adapted from Franklin Ernst’s OK Corral
I am not OK with me (-) (e.g. I don’t feel good/worthy/equal)
You’re OK with me (+) (e.g. I feel you are good/worthy/equal)
I am OK with Me (+) (e.g. I feel good/worthy/equal)
Helpless/One Down Position I’m not OK, You’re OK
Interaction Outcome: I get away from you
Healthy Position I’m OK, You’re OK
Interaction Outcome: I get on with you
Hopeless Position I’m not OK, You’re not OK
Interaction Outcome: I get nowhere with you
Better than You/One Up Position I’m OK, You’re not OK
Interaction Outcome: I get rid of you
You are not OK with me (-) (e.g. I don’t feel you are good/worthy/equal)
Healthy Position = I am OK, you are OK
This is the healthiest position, with people occupying this position holding the belief they and anyone else in the interaction are innately worthy and valuable. This position is grounded in the belief in one’s own abilities, and is characterized by mutual respect and seeing the best in the other person, thereby allowing parties to find a constructive approach to issues. This healthy position is expressed in the adult ego state, and results in the individual wanting to continue interacting with the other party (I get on with you).To adopt this way of thinking requires self-awareness and the ability to manage one’s emotions (automatic motivation). In addition, this position benefits from having positive beliefs about self (reflective motivation) e.g. confidence, self-esteem, self-efficacy, perceived competencies, sense of empowerment, and behavioural control. It also requires feeling one’s role and identity are valuable, even in the face of factors which may render one disadvantaged or marginalized. As such, this position may be a challenge for community members to adopt, particularly if they are marginalized and lack this self-belief. However, by communicating from this position using the adult ego state, community facilitators can demonstrate their belief in community members’ worth and value, which can contribute to improving community members’ own belief in their ability to make desired changes.
Better than you/One Up Position = I am OK, you are not OK
In this position the individual is at an advantage or feels superior or right (“I’m OK”) and projects anger, disgust, or disdain onto the person with whom they are interacting who they perceive to be wrong, inferior, or a scapegoat (“You’re not OK”). As a result of this projection of anger, blame, and/or criticism, the other party may get angry in response. This position can be expressed in the critical parent or rebellious child ego state, and results in an individual blaming or feeling hostile towards the other party (I get rid of you). When community facilitators operate from this position they can undermine community members’ self-efficacy when they don’t seek to understand community members’ lived experiences or recognize them as experts in their own lives and instead act as the expert or limit their meaningful participation, which can give the impression they don’t believe community members are capable of change or finding solutions to their own issues.
Helpless/One Down Position = I am not OK, you are OK
In this position, the individual feels disadvantaged, helpless and disempowered in comparison with others they are interacting with and may experience themselves as victims. This position is often expressed in the rebellious child ego, and creates a sense of wanting to withdraw from others in the interaction (e.g. I get away from you) due to not feeling as worthy as others in the interaction, often as a result of existing limiting self-beliefs (e.g. individuals who are marginalized or discriminated against may not believe they have anything valuable to contribute, or believe in their capability to affect change).
Hopeless Position = I am not OK, you are not OK
In this position, the individual perceives themselves and the other party as not good, worthy, or having equal rights. It is essentially a hopeless and frustrating situation where effective communication is very difficult. This position if often expressed in the rebellious child ego, and results in the individual feeling that their interactions with the other party are futile (I get nowhere with you). For example, individuals who have experienced discrimination may have developed limiting self beliefs as well as a lack of trust in others/social systems, which cause them to feel hopeless about working with others or trying to affect change.
In the previous example where the community member interacts from a child ego state and community facilitator from their parent ego-state, the community member perceived the interaction from a hopeless life position as they don’t feel “OK” about themselves or the community facilitator, which results in their child ego state influencing the community facilitator’s to perceive the interaction and respond from a Better than you/One up life position. As this example shows, it is important to understand how your ego state and life positions may be triggered when faced with emotional situations and interactions with community members, as well be aware their ego states, so you can manage your feelings, thoughts, and actions and respond in ways that not to hinder your influence and ability to collaborate. Additional examples of how TA can aid your role as a community facilitator include:
It is important for community facilitators to understand that different communities and social groups may respond or behave differently as a result of their unique social and cultural experiences and learnings influencing their ways of being (ego states) and relating (life positions). TA can help you understand, appreciate and accept this diversity amongst community members, and help reduce unconscious bias from hindering your efforts to promote inclusivity, diversity and equality, and achievement of desired behaviour change outcomes [104].
When one is exposed to situations where the welfare of animals or people is compromised, community facilitators can experience negative feelings such as anger and hostility which can be challenging to manage (e.g. child or parent ego state). When these negative emotions influence community facilitator’s perceptions of, or are directed towards community members, the ability be an effective community servant can be compromised as rapport and trust break down [104]. Being aware of how and when your ego state and life position influence your interactions in these situations can enable you to regain control of your feelings, thoughts and actions so you can respond appropriately from your adult ego state.
How to Apply Transactional Analysis in Practice
Two models which help to understand how our roles in social interaction, which are influenced by our ego states and life positions, can produce ineffective and effective communication are referred to as the Drama Triangle and Winner’s Triangle which are illustrated in the figures below.
The Drama Triangle is a model which describes conflicted or drama intense relationship transactions [105]. The drama triangle defines the three unconscious roles people take on (and can switch between) in stressful, emotional, or high conflict situations. When two people enter an interaction in one of the three roles on the drama triangle, their interactions will be characterized by drama, stress, conflict, or rescuing people from their responsibilities to solution problems for themselves. These interactions are unhelpful, and interfere with problem solving and effective communication. The three roles of the drama triangle which are further described below are Victim, Persecutor, and Rescuer; and people are likely to have a preference for playing one of these roles.
VictimRole: people who play this role feel oppressed, hopeless, and helpless. They may complain of unmet needs, and be unable to make decisions, solve problems, take pleasure in life, or achieve insight. The payoff for individuals who take this role is that they can avoid dealing with things that are unpleasant or difficult. The problem with the victim role is that individuals discount themselves, and typically seek out a persecutor and a rescuer who they think will save them but who in fact just disempowers them by perpetuating the victim’s negative feelings and/or creating dependency e.g. nothing is my fault, I’m not capable, poor me. The victim role is aligned with the hopeless (I am not OK, You are Not OK) or helpless/one down life positions (I am not OK, you are OK). Characteristics commonly associated with the victim role include: complaining, being helpless, withdrawing, catastrophizing, pretending to be incompetent.
RescuerRole: people who play this role tend to be enablers, will feel guilty if they don’t come to rescue, can be over-helpful, self-sacrificing. The payoff of this role is to be needed, wanted or liked. The problem with the rescuer role is that rescuing discounts others’ ability to think for themselves, keeps those in the victim role dependent, and gives the victim permission to fail e.g. you need me, let me help. The rescuer role is very prevalent amongst helping and caring professions, and is aligned with better than you/one up position (I am OK, you are not OK). Characteristics commonly associated with the rescuer role include: fixing, telling, giving solutions, taking over, martyrdom.
Persecutor Role: people who play this role tend to blame, criticise, and can be oppressive, controlling, rigid, authoritative, angry, and unpleasant. The payoff for persecutors is that they get what they want. However the issue with this role is that they tend to discount others’ value and integrity, don’t enable others to show their full potential, and keep the victim feeling oppressed by their demanding and inflexible behaviour. Persecutors will seek to control and criticize while failing to solve any problems or help anyone else solve the problem e.g. its all your fault, you got it wrong, and people tend to want to get away from them whenever they can. The persecutor role is aligned with the better than you/one up life position (I am OK, you are not OK). Characteristics commonly associated with the persecutor role include: criticizing, blaming, labelling, putting others down, feeling inadequate.
While the Drama triangle describes the above roles in their most extreme form, we often encounter milder versions of these roles in our work and personal lives. When people are caught up in a drama triangle, they will switch roles, and a rescuer may become a victim or a victim may become a rescuer, and these roles can change as the dynamics of the interactions change and develop.
As an alternative to the problematic drama triangle, the winner’s triangle was developed as a model for more productive social interactions that lead to a win-win situation for everyone involved [106].The roles within the winner’s triangle reflect the positive aspects of the three drama triangle roles and include: Assertive (vs. persecutor), Caring (vs. rescuer), and Vulnerable (vs. victim), which are further defined below [106, 107]:
Vulnerable Role: people who play this role may be suffering however express their real feelings, accept themselves, use their thinking and problem solving, and take action to care for themselves.
Caring Role: people who play this role have genuine concern for people which they demonstrate by: giving help when asked, trusting the other person has their own answers, accepting and encouraging others’ to think for themselves, actively listening (without trying to solve the problem), having clear boundaries, doing their share, and not doing things they don’t want to do (unless absolutely necessary). They are caring, understanding, and don’t need to be needed by others.
Assertive Role: people who play this role are aware of their own feelings, needs and wants, and act in their own best interests by: asking for what they want, saying no to what they don’t want, being flexible in order to get their own needs met, and don’t punish or others feel wrong. They often use “I” statements (vs. you statements), are non-judgemental, and accept others’ value and integrity.
The drama triangle can be transformed into the winner’s triangle through development of one’ self-awareness, managing one’s emotions, and communicate effectively [107]. Once we understand these drama patterns and become aware we are no longer operating in the adult ego state, we can break free and choose to step off the drama triangle and consciously seek to operate from our adult ego state.
As facilitators of behaviour change, it is therefore helpful to understand which role you tend to play on the Drama triangle. For example, as a community facilitator you may have a tendency to step on to the drama triangle in the role of rescuer, or potentially persecutor, and perceive community members as the victim who either are to blame for the welfare issues of their animals or who need your help to address observed welfare issues. Or you may perceive other community members or stakeholders within the role of persecutor, for example the animal health service provider who provides poor treatment and puts animals at risk may be perceived as the persecutor. These roles may then change if after your initial interactions, you find community members are not following your advice on how to improve animal welfare and are instead following the advice of the poorly trained animal health service provider. In this example, you may find yourself moving from rescuer to persecutor and start feeling negative feelings towards the animal owner. These feelings and associated responses and interactions are unhelpful to problem solving and achievement of the goal for improved animal welfare. Alternatively, if you perceived the animal health service provider in the role of persecutor, this would be similarly unhelpful to promoting a collaborative approach to addressing animal welfare issues.
When our professional interactions don’t seem authentic, or when we find ourselves confused or frustrated by conversations with others, we probably we have entered into one of the roles on the drama triangle. So how can you become free of all that could be holding you back so you can relate to people with congruence and authentic influence?
Use the following steps when interacting with community members to support effective inter-personal communication to promote collaboration and improve your ability to influence behaviour change:
Notice how you feel: the first thing to do when you feel a sense of confusion, irritation frustration, or helplessness is simply to notice this is actually happening. Ask yourself the following questions to improve your self-awareness:
Are we frustrated, confused, irritated, do we feel it's somebody else's fault?
Does that mean that we might be operating from a parent or child role?
Are we feeling “not ok” about ourselves or the other person?
Do we feel as if we're in our adult ego state?
Are we experiencing crossed transactions (where either our and/or another person’s non-adult ego state is operating).
Think about what might be happening for you, and also for the other person?
Listen - in order to communicate effectively we first need to listen (for additional guidance re to section on active listening below)
Move to your adult ego state
Soothe the child or parent ego state (yours or the other’s)
Enabling someone to move to their adult ego state so they can communicate from their best self is easily done by giving a few meaningful and positive comments e.g. empathetic responses or positive affirmations (for additional guidance refer to sections on empathy and active listening below). For example, you can say “That must be difficult for you”, “I understand how stressful that is for you”, “I know its frustrating when things don’t go as you believe they should” which helps the person then move back to their adult ego state so you can interact in a congruent adult-adult ego state.
Feel/show: it is important to authentically feel, and to show qualities of respect, vulnerability, authenticity, and empathy.
By understanding TA and being aware of the different ego states, you can learn not to respond based on unhelpful ways of being (e.g. from parent or child ego states, unhealthy life positions), and instead choose to respond consciously to improve communication, collaboration, and your ability to influence human behaviour change. TA therefore lends itself to strengthening emotional intelligence and inter-personal communication in the following ways:
Improves self-awareness through enabling identification and understanding of our/others’ emotional state and how this is influenced by/influences inter-personal interactions
Enables self-management as we can learn to keep our emotions under control once we are aware of them, thereby enabling us to choose to react consciously and in ways which are congruent with our values and objectives even in the face of challenges
Improves social awareness by enabling us to understand how others are feeling and why they reacting as they are,
Increases social skills by enabling us to respond effectively and with empathy, based on an understanding of our self and others, which also helps mitigate potential for conflict and break downs in interpersonal relations.
2c. Key Communication Skills
Empathy: Understanding Others’ Perspective
Empathy is a foundational skill which underpins emotional intelligence. The ability to communicate (send and receive messages) and lead by understanding others' thoughts, views, and feelings (being empathetic) is one of the most important means through which community facilitators enhance the quality of their interactions with community members to influence transformation and change.
Definition of Empathy: empathy is the ability to see things from another person’s point of view or from their frame of reference and feel what they feel. It involves understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another person without making judgements [108]. In terms of communication, being empathetic involves communicating your sense of the other person’s experiences and feelings from your understanding of their perspective.
Benefits of Being Empathetic
Empathy involves being able to understand what a person is feeling in a given moment and also why their behaviours or actions make sense to them and we can use these insights to appropriately frame our communications with others, build trust and strengthen our relationships, and ultimately be more effective leading and inspiring desired change. The benefits of empathy are further described below:
Rapport Building: when facilitators express understanding of community members’ experience and feelings, and community members in turn feel they are accurately understood, accepted, and feel secure, rapport is built which is critical to a facilitator’s ability to influence behaviour change.
Improved Understanding and Awareness: responding with empathy provides community facilitators the opportunity to better organize and reflect back the meaning of the information community members are processing and communicating. This enables the facilitator to:
Demonstrate and check their own understanding of community members’ experiences and feelings, and
Evoke community members’ own reflections to support them in identifying problematic behaviours and solutions for themselves, as opposed to telling them or providing personal opinions or judgements which can cause defensiveness and a break down in relations. This is helpful to facilitating community members’ to move through the stages of change.
Guidance on Being Empathetic
Factors Influencing Empathy: People tend to be more empathetic toward some people and less so toward others [108]. As acommunity facilitator, it important to understand some of the factors that may influence your empathy so you can mitigate them and ensure your empathy is consistent across people you interact with. Factors influencing empathy include [108]:
How you perceive the other person
How you attribute the other individual's behaviours
What you blame for the other person's predicament
Your past experiences and expectations
You can mitigate these factors’ potential negative influence and improve your ability to be empathetic through an understanding and application of transactional analysis, particularly in relation to its assumptions, ego states, and life positions. Furthermore, the following points provide suggestions for how to be empathetic with others [109]:
Actively listen: effective listening must be active, which requires listening attentively to a speaker, understanding what they're saying, responding and reflecting on what's being said (refer to section below for guidance on active listening). It can also be demonstrated by providing appropriate feedback through body language e.g. nodding, smiling to encourage them continue, leaning forward, eye contact etc. Active listening encourages both the listener and speaker to remain actively engaged in the conversation.
Imagine yourself in the other person’s situation and accept their interpretation of it: By Imagining being in same situation as the person enables you to connect with their emotions and perspective and help ensure you don’t draw incorrect conclusions, comment and/or judge from your perspective without knowing the full details of what a person is experiencing e.g. “this is no big deal”, “you should try harder”, “you’re overreacting” etc. It is important to accept their interpretation of their experiences/situation without judging it, even if you do not agree and have a different interpretation.
Show care and concern: when someone tells you about their challenges or issues, show care and concern by asking how they are doing, if they would like your support, and/or let them know you are there to listen and support them in the ways you can/as appropriate.
Acknowledge the person’s feelings: it is important to validate people’s experiences and feelings as a means to build trust and rapport before working with them to address issues. Acknowledging means to recognize the importance of how they are feeling. Ensure you do no brush off or dismiss their feelings, avoid the topic, say something irrelevant, or attempt to move the conversation on before acknowledging and respecting how they feel.
Ask questions: ask people questionsto learn more about them and their lives and help encourage people to share more (refer to section below on open questions).
Don’t Rush the Conversation: a common mistake in community facilitation is trying to rush conversations to reach a certain end point or achieve a predetermined objective. When someone is sharing about their situation or issues, glossing over what they are feeling to rush towards the desired end point without acknowledging their feelings is invalidating and undermines the potential for collaboration. The more empathetic thing to do is connect with them based on their current emotional state by understanding their perspective and how they feel, and then seek to move them forward with questions. For example, a conversation like this may flow like this: “That sounds really frustrating” → “What happened that made it so difficult?” → “How are you feeling about it now?” → “What are your ideas about how to move forward?”. You can better build rapport by pacing the conversation and matching a person’s emotional state rather than trying to rush a conversation to a specific end point.
Don’t Judge: it is important to not to express judgement on an issue or person, nor form one before you understand the situation. Instead always give people the benefit of the doubt and understand they are doing the best they can and likely have their own justified reasons for their decisions, thoughts, and actions. It is also important to remember that all people have the ability to change and to uphold this belief regardless of their current actions.
Mirroring: mirroring is about connecting authentically with others by imitating their nonverbal signals as a means to build rapport e.g. their gestures, speech patterns, or attitude etc. The goal is not to copy someone’s mannerisms blindly but rather to adjust your behaviour to match their tone and vibe to create a sense of congruence with them.
Show emotional support: emotional support means giving people your trust, affirmation and encouragement (refer to section below on affirmations). Let them know that you will support them in whatever they choose to do and do not judge them. An example of a supportive statement is: “Knowing you, you always consider things very carefully. You know your situation best and I am supportive of whatever you choose to do.” Sometimes, what people are looking for is not answers or not solutions, but rather are looking for empathy and support.
In addition to the above, other things you can do to strengthen your empathy skills include [108]:
Work on listening to people without interrupting.
Pay attention to body language and other types of nonverbal communication.
Seek to learn more about how others feel to strengthen your connection with them.
Seek to identify your biases to understand and mitigate how they affect your perceptions of others.
Look for ways in which you are similar to others versus focusing on your differences.
Be willing to be vulnerable and open about how you feel.
Engage in new experiences to improve your understanding of how others in that situation may feel.
Examples of Responding with Empathy
Example Scenario: a community member expresses the following: “I’d like to meet my livestock’s welfare needs and am worried that I won’t be able to continue to rely them to earn a living if I don’t; but I don’t know what I can do given how busy I am and how limited my resources are. It’s overwhelming.”
Examples of empathetic responses:
“You rely on your animals and care about their wellbeing, and face challenges in meeting their needs which leaves you feeling very overwhelmed and not sure what to do.”
“It is understandable that you are worried about your animals and your livelihood which depends on them, and feel a sense of powerlessness.”
“There’s a looming uncertainty and risk if you don’t meet your animals’ welfare needs, and it feels like there’s a wall in front of you which prevents you from being able to take action to improve their welfare.”
“So, on the one hand, you want to take action and improve your animals’ welfare, but on the other, you worry you won’t be able to do anything even though you have the desire to.”
Applying Empathy to Improve Communications
When you are communicating it is important to adapt your communication to what will be most effective for the interaction from the perspective of the person you are engaging with. The following two step sequence outline how you can take the concept of empathy and apply it to your communication practices [110]:
Attribution: attribution is the act of gathering information concerning where your audience or recipient is and how they will best receive your message. You can do this by seeking to understand the perspective of the person receiving your communication and see the world from their eyes and understand how they feel. This will enable you to make some “attributions” about where they are, what they want, and how they may need something conveyed to them.
Accommodation: once you have taken into account the perspective of the person receiving your communication, you will then need to accommodate their perspective and feelings by adapting your behaviour and communication to their perspective. Adapting to a context and speaking empathically doesn’t mean you have to tell people whatever they want, but rather when you know where people are at, you can be more effective in compelling them into a different future. To help you adapt your communications to be empathetic, consider the following questions from the perspective of your audience [110]:
What communication do they need to hear (e.g. choosing the right words that make the most sense in the situation to fit their perspective)?
How do they need to hear it?
Where do they need to hear it?
What is the style they need to hear it in?
Why they are interested in hearing it in the first place?
Active Listening - open ended questions, affirmations, reflective listening, summarizing
The core skill associated with effective communication is active listening which includes: asking open questions, and providing affirmations, reflections and summaries. This can be remembered by the acronym OARS.
Listening is different to hearing what someone says. It is a very active process and can achieve the empathy, deep curiosity and exploration of someone’s perspective needed in the change process. This can also be vital to overcome any challenges regarding the interpersonal relationship between listener and speaker.
OPEN QUESTIONS
Open questions are questions that encourage more than a yes or no answer. They elicit understanding, encourage talking and facilitate abstract thinking skills.
The goal: use more open than closed questions.
Open Question Examples:
“How are you today?”
“What’s made you speak to me about this?”
“Can you tell me more about that?”
“Why do you want to make this change?”
Additional tips for framing open-ended questions to be authentic and situationally appropriate:
During initial discussions, ask questions which first seek to identify a person’s own understanding of situation/problem e.g. ask what they know about the issue. This will enable you to focus your discussion with them on areas where they may lack understanding or awareness.
Remain curious to learn and focus on evoking more change talk through open ended questions and reflections.
Keep in mind which stage of change a person is in at a given point in time, and tailor your questions depending on their stage of change/how they respond. For example you can tailor questions or elicit change talk in pre-contemplation, contemplation stage, or tailor questions to evoke ideas about how to plan/solutions in preparation stage. How to use open ended questions within the four facilitation processes for facilitating progress through the stages are described below:
Process of Engagement: use open ended questions when starting to build a foundational relationship to gain sense of what is important to community members and help build rapport
Process of Focusing: after rapport has been built, use open ended questions to begin identifying the priority issues community members are interested in to set a clear direction for working together moving forward.
Process of Evoking: use open ended questions here to elicit change talk change talk and draw out their own reasons and motivations for change.
Process of Planning: once community members are aware of the issue and have expressed a desire to change to behaviour, use open ended questions to ask about what they think they can do/what solutions they can implement to achieve desired change.
AFFIRMATIONS
Affirming means to actively listen for a client’s positive strengths, skills, values, efforts, accomplishments, aspirations and traits, and to reflect those to the client.
The goal: be in a mind-set of consciously ‘looking out for’ these positive qualities, and, if genuinely appreciated, to reflect them back to community members.
Affirmation Examples:
“You came up with a lot of great ideas to address your animal’s welfare needs. Great brainstorming today.”
“It’s important to you to be a good animal owner.”
“You are the kind of person who takes their responsibilities seriously, and want to do the right thing.”
“You’re investing a lot of effort and really trying to make this change.”
Additional tips on giving affirmations:
Affirmations should be framed in terms of “You” and never include the word “I”. This is because “I” reflects your opinion rather than affirms an innate quality or strength in the person e.g. “You clearly have through about this care a lot” vs. “I think you care a lot.”
Focus affirmations on reflecting a person’s efforts rather than their results as a means to encourage and motivate them and promote their self efficacy and confidence.
Avoid using words like good, bad, great etc. when making affirmations as they imply judgement. When such positive words are used they act more like praise rather than affirmations e.g. “It is good you are supporting your animals” (praise) vs. “Caring for your animals is important to you” (affirming).
Focus affirmations on positive aspects as a means to express empathy for what and why they want to change e.g. focusing on their strengths, efforts, who they are as a person/animal owner etc.
REFLECTIONS
Reflections are statements rather than questions, and are based on having listened to what someone said, and making a guess as to what they meant. Often a question statement can be turned into a reflection by removing the inflection at the end and any query words at the beginning. Reflections can be simple or complex. Try to use complex reflections at least half of the time.
The goal:
Remember that what we think a speaker means may not be correct, and that we must ‘hypothesis test’ our thoughts with reflections to ensure common purpose
Reflect more often than you ask questions.
Reflection Examples: Consider the statement: “If I was happier monitoring my animal’s welfare, I would do it”. Possible reflections include:
“You would like to be more confident in monitoring your animal’s welfare.”
“You feel unsure about whether you’re monitoring your animal’s welfare correctly.”
“Observing your animals’ welfare issues is upsetting for you.”
SUMMARIES
A summary is a special type of reflection that brings together content from two or more statements made by someone. They encourage us to listen very carefully to what a person says throughout a session, and, when offered, show a person that you remember and value what they say. They also give the person we are speaking with an opportunity to point out if we have missed something important in the discussion, so they can fill in the gaps.
The goal: listen attentively to a person’s thoughts and feelings throughout, ready to use a ‘basket of reflections’ to thoughtfully collect, link or transition client statements as needed. For example, you may wish to form a collecting summary to bring together all the reasons for change someone has offered in an interaction.
Summary Example:
“So one thing you hope will be different a year from now is that you will have some better buildings on the farm, that will help make your daily routine easier and be more positive for the cows. You’ve been finding it easier to keep on top of the shelter cleaning recently, and you’d like that to continue. You also said you’d like to learn a little more about nutritional feed composition. What else comes to mind when you think of where you’d like things to be a year from now?”
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Development Approach, Community Engagement Approach, Societal Outreach and Campaigns Approach
Stages of Behaviour Change: Contemplation Stage
Project Support: Facilitator Resources, Training
Specific Topics: Outreach and Communications; Community Change Agents
When someone is contemplating making a change, there is balance between their reasons for and against change, and people often experience a period characterised by ambivalence where they weigh the advantages and disadvantages of change to help them make a decision. Resolving this ambivalence and tipping the balance in favour of change can be achieved by strengthening a person’s language about their reasons to change, referred to as change talk, and softening their language in favour of the status quo, referred to as sustain talk. The purpose of this facilitator resource is to enable you to recognize and understand the difference between change talk and sustain talk. Your ability to recognize change talk and sustain talk is a necessary first step to enabling you to effectively facilitate conversations about change as needed to evoke and strengthen community members’ rationales for change (change talk), and overcome their arguments for not changing (sustain talk).
Ambivalence
Ambivalence is the state of experiencing conflicting beliefs, feelings or emotions simultaneously, which can stop people’s progress towards change. When someone is in a state of ambivalence, they will often have very good reasons for change and very good reasons against change. The language community members use (change talk and sustain talk) will indicate whether they are in this contemplation, or ambivalent stage of change.
If someone is simply not yet ready to change or does not believe there is a problem, this is different than ambivalence. In such situations you may instead encounter resistance talk, indicating they are in the pre-contemplation stage of change. For example, someone may say “I don’t believe this is a big a problem and don’t see the need to change.”
Change Talk
The acronym “DARN CAT” is useful to use to understand the types of change talk we hear. When someone is preparing to change, “DARN talk occurs, which is described with examples in the table below [111].
Types of Change Language
Change Talk Examples
Desire Statements about preference for change.
“I’d like my animals not to be lame regularly.”“I want to...” “I would like to...” “I wish…“
Ability Statements about capability.
“I guess I could pick out my animal’s feet more regularly.”“I could…”, “I can...”, “I might be able to…“
Reasons Specific arguments for change
“I want my animals to have good welfare.”“I would probably feel less stress if my animal’s welfare improved”“My animal needs to feel better as my family’s livelihood depends on it.”
Need Statements about feeling obliged to change.
“I must spend less time and money seeking treatments from animal health service providers.” “I ought to…”, “I have to…“, “I really should…”
When someone is close to resolving their ambivalencein favour of change, CAT talk appears which is described with examples in the table below.
Types of Change Language
Change Talk Example Statements
Commitment Statements about their willingness to change.
“I have good reasons to improve my animal’s welfare.”“I am going to ... “, “I promise…”, “I intend to... “
Action Statements about their readiness to take action.
“I’m willing to talk to an animal health service provider about this.” “I am ready to ... “ “I will start tomorrow…”
Taking steps Statements about action taken.
“I’ve started attending community meetings where this topic is discussed.”“I actually went out and…”, “This week I started...”
Sustain Talk
Any language that can act to promote change also has an equal and opposite partner in favour of staying the same: sustain talk. You will be able to identify sustain talk when a person verbalizes their reasons not changing. The table below outlines the types of sustain talk with examples.
Types of Sustain Language
Sustain Talk Example Statements
Desire Statements about preference for staying the same/not changing.
“I don’t want to spend that long trying to prevent issues.”
Ability Statements about not having capability.
“I’ve tried, and I don’t think I can check my animal’s feet that often.” “I can’t afford to seek treatment for my animal.”
Reasons Specific arguments against change
“If I try to manage this issue I just create a problem somewhere else.”
Need Statements about not feeling an obligation to change.
“I’ve got to focus my time on other things.”
Commitment Statements about their unwillingness or lack of commitment to change.
“I’m just not going to care for my animal’s feet - that’s final.”
Action Statements about not wanting to take action.
“I’m prepared to accept the risks of keeping my animals this way.”
Taking steps Statements about actions no taken.
“I threw away that information sheet earlier this week.”
Specific Topics: Outreach and Communications; Community Change Agents
Much of the work of community facilitators relies on their ability to effectively facilitate conversations and motivate communities to adopt desired change. A guided conversational facilitation technique for engaging stakeholders, clarifying their strengths and aspirations, evoking their own motivations for change, and promoting their autonomy in decision making is called Motivational Interviewing (MI). This facilitator resource outlines the spirit, processes and key principles of MI ensure conversations about change are effectively facilitated and that communities’ preferences, needs and values remain at the heart of all conversations.
The Spirit of Facilitating Conversations about Change
In order to be effective in facilitating conversations about change, it is first necessary to have the right mind-set or way of being, referred to a “spirit” in MI. The following section outlines the key elements of the spirit of MI which are required to effectively facilitating conversations about change, which are represented by the acronym “CAPE” [57]:
Compassion: Actively promoting community members’ welfare and needs.
Acceptance: Viewing your community members’ as people with absolute worth and autonomy, and engaging with empathy and affirmations.
Partnership: Viewing your interaction with community members as an active collaboration between experts.
Evocation: Viewing community members as people with their own good reasons and strength to change. Your role as a community facilitator is to guide them there.
It is important to consciously strive to embody this spirit and draw upon these four elements whenever facilitating conversations about change with community members.
Key Principles of Facilitating Conversations about Change
In addition to embodying the element of spirit, it is important to follow the four guiding principles below to effectively facilitate conversations about change [57, 112]:
Listen with empathy: Effective listening skills are essential to understand what will motivate a person to change, as well as the pros and cons of their situation. Seek to understand their values, needs, abilities, motivations, and potential barriers to changing their behaviour, and communicate respect and acceptance of where the person is in their change process.
Understand a person’s motivations: It is a person’s own reasons for change, rather than the community facilitators, that will ultimately result in behaviour change. By approaching a person’s interests, concerns and values with curiosity and openly exploring their motivations for change, community facilitators will get a better understanding of community members’ motivations and potential barriers to change.
Empower the person: Empowering people involves exploring their own ideas about how they can make changes to improve their animal’s welfare and drawing on their personal knowledge about what has succeeded in the past. It is the role of the community facilitator to elicit hope and support and encourage a person’s belief in the possibility of change, and their capacity to reach their goals. Work with them to identify achievable steps towards change an
Resist the righting reflex: The righting reflex describes the common urge amongst community workers to fix what is wrong (with a person, situation, or animal). It involves giving unsolicited advice e.g. “you should…”, or advice without eliciting more about the person’s perspective. At its core, it is a helping response driven by a desire to be of service, promote positive change, and support others; however it is often unhelpful in situations where people are uncertain about changing. When we give in to the righting reflecting, we often inadvertently reinforce a person’s argument to maintain the status quo. This is because most people resist persuasion when they are uncertain about change, and instead respond by recalling their reasons for maintaining the behaviour. Community facilitator’s ability to suppress their initial righting reflex is essential enabling them to explore and evoke a person’s own motivations for change.
Guidance on Providing Advice and Feedback: Ask-Offer-Ask
It is important to always remember that community members have the most expertise in their lived experience, and that any engagement with them needs to be in the spirit of partnership (vs. acting like the expert or parent or in their lives). When providing information, advice or feedback to support others’ change process and avoid falling into the unhelpful righting reflex trap, it is recommended to use the Ask-Offer-Ask model as described below:
Before providing your advice, information or feedback to community members, first ASK what they already know or what do they want to know about? e.g. “You know your situation best, how are you managing this issue right now?”, What are your thoughts on…? “What you know about….?”, “What would you like to know about?”, “Is there any information I can help you with?”, “What might be helpful?”
Exploring prior knowledge and what community members are interested in knowing more about shows respect for community members as experts on themselves. Further, it avoids telling them what they already know, which can also save time. Asking about what they’re interested to know helps you find out what they most need and want to know. You can then use reflections to show you have listened to what they have said before moving on to offering your expertise.
Ask permission to offer your advice, only then OFFER your advice/information, suggestion e.g. “Would it be alright if we talked about…?”, “I have some ideas about…, would you be happy for me to share them?”, “Would you like to know about…?”
Consider the following when offering your expertise:
Offer your input in a neutral way, and avoid scolding, instructing, telling them what to do, giving long lectures, or saying things like “you should…”.
Prioritize what you offer: what does the person most want/need to know? Start with what they want to know. Even if you have information you want to share, but don’t lead with what you think is most important.
Be clear: avoid jargon and use everyday language
Offer small amounts of information/advice and then check how it is received, making sure to provide them with time to reflect.
Support their personal choice/ agency: Acknowledge people’s freedom to disagree or ignore your input. Giving them the choice not to take your advice provides them with freedom and autonomy, and they are in turn more likely to listen and take your advice. e.g. “You might disagree with this idea”, “…but, of course it’s up to you…”, “I don’t know whether this is relevant to your situation…”, “This may or may not interest you…”, “I wonder what you will think of this…?”
Asking permission shows respect and increases their willingness to hear your thoughts/advice/information/feedback. Collaboration and shared focus are key.
Once you have provided advice or information, ASK community members what they think about it and what it means to them by:
Using open questions e.g. “What do you think?”, “What does that mean to you?”, “What are your thoughts on this?”, “How does that sit with your knowledge of this?”
Use reflections to reflect back the reaction you observed in them
Allow them time to process and respond to the information.
Asking what community members think of your input respects them as experts on activating their change. It also will enable you to check their understanding, identify potential needs for further discussion, or enable you to adapt your engagement as needed to further support their change process.
To effectively provide advice and overcome our righting reflex requires skills in active listening and empathy. Refer to the facilitator resource Essential Communication Skills for Promoting Behaviour Change for guidance on active listening and empathy.
The Process for Facilitating Conversations about Change
In addition to having the right mind-set or spirit and communication skills to facilitate conversations about change, you also need to know how to go about it. The following section outlines the four processes or sequential steps to follow to facilitate conversations about change[57]. However, it should be noted, that while these processes are generally followed in the order shown, in the course of a conversation, the processes are not necessarily fixed and any stage might recur, or the steps might overlap and flow into each other.
Step 1 - Engage: during this step, the goal is to create a collaborative working relationship with community members based on mutual trust and respect. To do this, community members need to feel that they are comfortably and actively participating in the discussion.
During the engage process, focus on:
Understanding why community members want to work with you. What do they want?
Understanding how important community members’ goals for their animals’ welfare may be. What are their challenges and motivators for improving animal welfare issue(s)?
Being welcoming, empathetic, and understanding.
Establish and explore expectations around how community members think you can help.
Offering hope, and presenting a positive, honest picture of possible changes.
Consider the following questions to support your effectiveness in having conversations seeking to engage community members in a collaborative working relationship:
How comfortable is this person talking to me?
How supportive and helpful am I being?
Do I understand this person's perspective and concerns?
How comfortable do I feel in this conversation?
Does this feel like a collaborative interaction?
Step 2 - Focus: during this step, the goal is to build a conversation that is purposefully moving towards change. Ensure consistency between your ideas and those of community members in terms by finding one (or more) goals or outcomes that create a direction that you and community member(s) agree on. The following three elements can help bring about focus, and may influence one another:
Community members may have problems they are interested in discussing with you
The context can inform the topic of focus e.g. veterinary visit, welfare inspection
Your own expertise may similarly provide insights on potential topics of focus as while community members may have ideas of their own, others may become apparent to you in course of your discussion with them.
Consider the following questions to support your effectiveness in having conversations with community members to bring about focus in goals for working together:
Do I have different aspirations for change for this person?
What goals for change does this person really have?
Are we working together for a common purpose?
Does it feel like we are moving together, not in a different direction?
Do I have a clear sense of where we are going?
Step 3 - Evoke: the goal of this step is to elicit community members’ own motivation to change whereby they talk themselves into change. To do this requires learning to recognise and evoke change talk, and strengthen it when it occurs (refer to facilitator resources 3. Guidance on Listening for Change Talk, and 2c. Key Communication Skills for further guidance)
Examples of change-oriented questions related to level of importance or confidence that can help evoke change talk include, but are not limited to:
If you could magically change one thing right now by snapping your fingers, what would it be? How could you do it?
What have you achieved so far?
How important is it for you to….?
What are the down sides of how things are now?
If you choose to continue on without making a change, how do you think your life might look like this time next year?
How could you implement this change?
What’s the worst thing that could happen if you make this change?
What’s the best possible outcome?
Use the following tips to strengthen change talk once you hear it:
Consider the following questions to support your effectiveness in having conversations seeking to evoke community members’ own reasons for change:
Is my righting reflex being activated and causing me to be the one arguing for change?
Is their reluctance to change more about lack of confidence or that they don’t feel making a change is important?
What arguments for change am I hearing?
Am I directing the conversation too far or fast in a particular direction?
What are this person's own reasons for change?
Step 4 - Plan: the goal of conversations in this step is to have conversations about action, whilst carefully promoting community members’ autonomy and decision making. The planning step occurs when community members begin thinking and talking more about how they could change and when, and less about why and whether to change, for example, when community members:
Consider the following questions to support your effectiveness in having conversations with community members about planning for change:
What would be a reasonable next step towards change?
Am I remembering to evoke rather than prescribe a plan?
What would help this person move forward?
Am I offering needed information or advice with permission?
Am I retaining a sense of quiet curiosity about what will work best for the person?
Facilitating Conversations about Change with Groups instead of Individuals
The guidance outlined above applies when working with individuals or groups. However, when having conversations with groups of community members, applying MI’s spirit, principles process, and key communication skills (discussed in the facilitator resource Essential Communication Skills for Promoting Behaviour Change) can be further tailored to support group discussions in the following ways:
Affirm peoples' efforts to come together
Giving people a chance to have a choice (listening to them)
Reflect change talk as people contribute back to the wider group to inspire more collective change talk
Ask permission to give information
Evoke Questions from the group
Draw upon their expertise and experiences
Acknowledge their choices/agency/autonomy
Summarize the group consensus
Support the group to prioritize options and choices
General Best Practices and Rules of Thumb
Key best practices and rules of thumb to remember about the spirit, principles, and process of facilitating conversations about change (MI) include:
Effective Way of Being(MI consistent - DO)
Infective Way of Being(MI inconsistent - AVOID)
I have some expertise, and community members are the experts of themselves.
I am the expert on how and why community members’ should change.
I find out what information community members want and need.
I collect information about problems.
I match information to client needs and strengths.
I rectify gaps in knowledge.
Community members can tell me what kind of information is helpful.
Frightening information can be helpful.
Advice that champions community members’ needs and autonomy can be helpful
I just need to tell them clearly what to do.
Avoid the following common pit-falls in facilitating conversations about change:
Assuming providing our expertise will fix community members’ problems by providing our expertise and assuming this will solve the problem.
Overestimating how much information and advice communities need.
Thinking that frightening information is helpful and will motivate people to change.
Facilitating conversations about change (MI) is about evoking peoples' own motivations for change rather than trying to instil it.
Have interest in, and make an effort to understand the internal perspective of community members with whom you engage.
The use of MI techniques outlined in this resource are done 'for' and 'with' people.
Actively prioritise community members’ needs and promote their well-being. Improving animal welfare should not come at the expense of community members’ needs or well-being but rather be aligned with them.
Value and trust in the inherent potential and worth of community members with whom you interact.
Seek to acknowledge the efforts and strengths of community members.
Honour and respect community members’ autonomy, and their right and capability to direct their own lives, learning, motivation and behaviour based on their understanding of their own situations.
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.”
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.
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
This PLA may be conducted to explore the potential benefits, risks and affordability of different practices to enable participants to thoroughly examine the implications of their choices for more informed decision-making. This tool includes step-by-step guidance for three different versions, including:
This tool explores the potential benefits, risks, and affordability of adopting different animal welfare-related practices to both people and their animals, thereby enabling participants to thoroughly examine the implications of their choices for more informed decision making. By promoting understanding of the benefits of changing their behaviours or practices to improve animal welfare, along with the costs and effects of existing practices, this exercise promotes animal welfare improvements by generating motivation and commitment to change, and identifies opportunities for reducing costs through collective action.
Tool purpose:
Time needed:
• To promote understanding of the potential effects/costs and benefits of improving animal welfare practices for both animals and people. • To motivate participants to adopt new practices, either independently or collectively, to improve the welfare of their animals. • To identify ways to reduce costs of adopting new practices to improve animal welfare through collective group action.
2 hours
Materials needed:
Chart paper, index cards or sticky notes, pens/markers, chalk and/or locally available materials
Project Support: Participatory Learning and Action Tools
Specific Topics: Animal Husbandry and Management Practices, Livelihoods, Group Formation / Strengthening
Cost-benefit analysis of animal welfare practices
This exercise facilitates assessment of the costs and benefits of adopting different animal husbandry and management practices such as: feeding and watering, sheltering, humane handling, freedom of movement/no hobbling, allowing animals to socialize together, grooming, using welfare friendly equipment etc.
In the example below, animal-owning participants assessed the costs and benefits of adopting animal welfare practices that were previously identified as gaps during the T21 Animal Welfare Practice Gap Analysis.
T15a Cost-benefit analysis of improved animal welfare practices
The above example was produced by a group of animal-owners in a brick kiln community in Pakistan who identified lack of provision of balanced feed as an animal welfare practice gap.
Through discussions, the group identified the following as key learnings:
A balanced ration can be purchased by spending only Rs 50 more per day individually
Keeping the animal healthy is not only important for the health and wellbeing of the animal, but also for the family
Through discussions, the group identified the following possible solutions:
A few people decided that they would add maize to their regular feed ration
The group agreed to explore purchasing feed in bulk because it will save time and they can purchase it collectively at a reduced cost
Cost-benefit Analysis of Animal Welfare Practices
Step 1
Before undertaking this activity, identify key behaviours necessary for improving animal welfare that have been difficult to change amongst the community. For this exercise, have the community select only one hard to change behaviour for analysis at a time, where low motivation and/or high costs have been identified as hindering adoption.
Step 2
Start by drawing a matrix and write the difficult behaviour selected in step 1 in the top row. Ask a community helper to assist in creating the matrix if time and capacity permits.
Step 3
Start the discussion by asking the group to identify the perceived costs of adopting the practice, in terms of money, time and labour. Allow the community to identify the costs important to them without leading them and have the community helper write the costs on cards using words or symbols and place them in the matrix.
Step 4
Once the costs of adopting the new practice is identified, ask participants to specify the benefits to the animal. After the benefits to the animal are identified, ask participants to identify the benefits to the household and have the community helper write the benefits on cards using words or symbols and place them in the matrix.
Step 5
Once the matrix is complete for adopting the new practice, ask participants to identify the effects/costs on the animal if the new practice is not adopted. After these effects/costs to the animal are identified, ask them to identify any effects/costs on the household. Have the community helper write the effects/costs on cards using words or symbols and place them in the matrix.
Step 6
Once the matrix is complete, review it with participants to assess the costs and benefits of adopting the new practice. The following guiding questions may be used to facilitate the discussion:
• What have you learned from this exercise? • What are possible solutions to reduce the negative impacts to animal welfare and your household, while also mitigating the potential costs to your household of adopting the new practice? (Either at household or group level) • Who needs to do what differently and how often?
Have the community helper document the key learnings and possible solutions from the discussions. Based on the discussion, prompt the group to decide on what actions they wish to take, any support needed and who will monitor. Add them to the community action plan.
Step 7
The matrix should be left with the community. A copy should be made for reference for future discussions and action planning. Add a copy to your project action tracker along with any identified needs for support or actions that need to be taken by the project. Make sure to add identified gaps in knowledge or understanding to your action tracker, as well as any plans to further sensitize animal-owning households in these areas.
Facilitator’s notes: Cost-benefit analysis of animal welfare practices
This tool is best conducted with participants who have already been introduced to concepts of animal welfare, understand animals’ needs and best practices. Consider using any or all of the following tools before undertaking a cost-benefit analysis. T19, T21, and T22 are particularly recommended, as reviewing their findings prior to this activity can help to identify the hard to change behaviours.
Make sure that participants consider more than just the financial costs when deciding whether to adopt any new practices.
It may be useful for professionals, such as vets or community animal health workers, to be present for this activity to advise on the animal welfare implications of any identified solutions. This will promote understanding of costs and benefits to animals and resolve any misconceptions about animal welfare issues and best practices.
Consider using any combination of writing, drawings, symbols or number scoring and/or locally available materials to represent costs and benefits identified to enable participants to understand and discuss the matrix once finalized.
When participants’ are considering the effects on the animal, encourage them to think about the physical, behavioural, mental/emotional state of the animal.
In contexts where male and female household members have different animal-related roles and responsibilities (e.g. ownership, care, use, financial decision making), conduct this activity with all household members who have key roles and responsibilities associated with the specific animal welfare practices being assessed and for which change is desired.
When new practices or behaviours are relatively easy to adopt with little risk or cost (e.g. grooming), it may be possible to assess more than a few behaviours in one session without overwhelming participants.
As changes in existing practices are achieved, and/or new priorities emerge, consider conducting this activity again to generate motivation for change in other animal welfare and management practices.
Next Steps
The following tools are recommended for use as a reflective learning exercise to understand whether any of the originally perceived costs and benefits were realized as a result of changes adopted to practices:
Participants may monitor animal-based welfare indicators to assess changes in animal welfare resulting from their changes in practice. Consider using animal-based welfare indicators developed in the following exercises:
T15b: Cost-Benefit Analysis - Prevention and Treatment of Animal Health Issues
This tool explores the potential benefits, risks, and affordability of preventing and treating animal health issues to both the animal and their owners, users and carers thereby enabling participants to thoroughly examine the implications of their choices for more informed decision making. By promoting understanding of the benefits of changing their behaviours or practices to improve animal welfare, along with the costs of inaction, this exercise can support animal welfare improvements by generating motivation and commitment to change, and identify opportunities for reducing costs through collective action.
Tool purpose:
Time needed:
• Promote understanding of the potential costs and benefits of preventing and/or treating animal health issues and effects of inaction for both animals and people. • To motivate participants to take action, either independently or collectively, to improve the health their animals. • Identify ways to reduce costs of adopting new practices to improve animal health through collective group action.
2-3 hours
Materials needed:
Chart paper, index cards or sticky notes, pens/markers, chalk, stones, pebbles, local materials (leaves, seeds, etc.)
Stages of Behaviour Change: Contemplation, Preparation Stage
Project Support: Participatory Learning and Action Tools
Specific Topics: Animal Health and Services, Livelihoods, Group Formation / Strengthening
Cost-benefit analysis of prevention and treatment of animal health issues
This version of the cost-benefit analysis promotes prevention and treatment of animal diseases or illnesses by assessing the costs and benefits of each to humans and animals, and potential effects if no action is taken. This activity can identify opportunities for collective action to reduce the costs associated with preventing and treating some animal health issues e.g. reduced rate group vaccinations.
In the example below, a cost-benefit analysis was conducted with an animal-owning group when prevention and treatment of animal illnesses were identified as a gaps in their welfare practices using the T21 animal welfare practice gap analysisexercise. The costs and benefits of prevention and treatment were assessed for the two highest priority illnesses previously identified by the community using the T8 pairwise ranking and scoring.
T15b Cost-benefit analysis of preventing and treating tetanus and colic
Cost-benefit analysis of prevention and treatment of animal health issues
Step 1
Before undertaking this activity, identify a priority disease or illness which has been difficult to encourage the community to adopt prevention or treatment measure. Consider reviewing findings from T1c Mapping - disease, T8 pairwise ranking and scoring or T9 matrix ranking and scoring to identify priority illnesses or diseases to analyse with the group. For this exercise, select only one disease to analyse at a time.
Step 2
Start by asking the community helper to draw a matrix and list ‘prevention’ and ‘treatment’ along top of the matrix.
Step 3
Ask participants about the main factors they consider when weighing the costs and benefits of preventing or treating the animal disease/illness being assessed. The group may add as many factors as they feel necessary.
The facilitator may probe the participants to consider the following factors if not initially identified, however factors should only be included which the participants use to inform their decision making:
• Cost of treatment/prevention • Disease/illness frequency • Severity • Prevention/treatment cost • Effectiveness • Loss of work/income due to animal illness (for working animals)
Ask the community helper to list identified factors in the first column of the matrix.
As a facilitator, ensure that the benefits to both animals and people are well represented by adding ‘benefits/effects on animal’ and ‘benefits/effects on household’ to the matrix once participants have identified the factors they consider when deciding whether to take preventative measures for illness/disease being assessed. Facilitate the group to fill in the matrix.
Step 4
Once the matrix is complete, review with participants.
Use the following guiding questions to facilitate the discussion:
• What have you learned from this exercise? • What are the benefits to both animal and household of taking preventative measures rather than seeking treatment? • What are possible solutions for reducing this disease/illness that reduce the costs for households? • Are there opportunities to take collective action to reduce the costs? • What steps would you take to put these solutions into practice?
Based on the discussion, prompt the group to decide on what actions they wish to take, any support needed, responsible parties and add them to the community action plan.
Step 5
The matrix should be documented, either through photos or recreated on paper. Copies should be made and distributed to the group for their records and for reference for future discussions and action planning. Add a copy to your project action tracker along with any identified needs for support or actions that need to be taken by the project.
Facilitator’s Notes: Cost-benefit analysis
As this exercise may take some time to complete, limit the number of assessed diseases/illnesses to the main 2-3 priorities. More can be added as time permits or the activity can be conducted again in the future to assess other illnesses/diseases. This is important to reducing the likelihood that participants’ become overwhelmed and/or demotivated to change as a result of the number of changes they are being asked to consider.
As changes in existing practices are achieved and/or new priorities emerge, consider conducting this activity again to generate motivation for change in other animal welfare and management practices.
This tool is best conducted with participants’ who have already been introduced to concepts of animal welfare, understand animals’ needs and best practices. Consider using any or all of the following tools before undertaking a cost benefit analysis:
In contexts where male and female household members have different animal-related roles and responsibilities (e.g. ownership, care, use, financial decision making), conduct this activity with all household members who have key roles and responsibilities associated with the specific animal welfare practices being assessed, and for which change is desired.
If literacy amongst participants is low, consider filling in the matrix using symbols, drawings, or number scoring rather than written text to represent general concepts (e.g. +/-, ?/?/☹). The facilitator is responsible for asking questions and facilitating discussions about representations in the matrix to promote understanding and engagement of all participants. See example in animal feed cost-benefit analysis.
It is common for participants to start by analysing the financial costs and benefits of alternative animal welfare practices and naturally seek out the cheapest options. Your role as a facilitator is to ensure that animal welfare costs and benefits are included in the discussions, along with their related implications on animal-owning households.
Next Steps
Address any misconceptions or gaps in knowledge or understanding that were added to your project action tracker (plans for additional outreach, trainings, or experiential learning activities to further sensitize animal-owning households within their own action plan).
The following tools are recommended for use as a reflective learning exercise to understand whether any of the originally perceived costs and benefits of action were realized as a result of changes adopted to practices.
Participants may monitor animal-based welfare indicators to assess changes in animal welfare resulting from their changes in practice. Consider using animal-based welfare indicators developed in the following exercises:
This tool explores the potential benefits, risks and affordability of adopting different animal feeding practices to both the animal and their owners, users and carers thereby enabling participants to thoroughly examine the implications of their choices for more informed decision making. By promoting understanding of the benefits of changing their current feeding practices to improve animal welfare, along with the costs of maintaining the current situation, this exercise can support animal welfare improvements by generating motivation and commitment to change, and identify opportunities for reducing costs through collective action.
Tool purpose:
Time needed:
• To promote understanding of the potential costs and benefits of improving animal feeding practices and effects of inaction for both animals and people • To motivate participants to take action, either independently or collectively, to improve the welfare their animals • To identify ways to reduce costs of adopting new feeding practices to improve animal welfare through collective group action.
2-3 hours
Materials needed:
Chart paper, index cards or sticky notes, pens/markers, chalk, stones, pebbles, local materials (leaves, seeds, etc.)
Stages of Behaviour Change: Contemplation, Preparation Stage
Project Support: Participatory Learning and Action Tools
Specific Topics: Animal Husbandry and Management, Group Formation / Strengthening
Feeding practice analysis
In our experience, many working animals are thin and community groups identify feeding as one of their main concerns. Root cause analyses often highlight difficulties in finding enough good quality food of high nutritional value and the high cost is often considered a barrier. The feeding practice analysis explores whether changes in animal feeding practices will lead to better animal welfare outcomes whilst remaining affordable. It can assess current feeding practices, the nutritional content of different feeds and/or general effect on the animal, and the best formulation of feed at low cost. Finally, this tool can identify opportunities to improve the affordability of feeds through collective action.
T15c Cost-benefit analysis of animal feeding practices in Halaba, Ethiopia
Cost-benefit Analysis of Feeding Practices
Step 1
Start by asking participants to discuss different types of feed available throughout the year, not just those which are currently available. Ask the community helper to draw a matrix on the ground or a large piece of chart paper, list the difference types of feed down the first column using words, symbols, pictures, or locally available materials to represent the different feed types.
Step 2
Ask participants to list the factors they consider when weighing the costs and benefits of using the different feeds. The group may add as many factors as they feel necessary.
The facilitator may probe the participants to consider the following factors if not initially identified, however factors should only be included which the participants use to inform their decision making:
• Cost • Availability (seasonal/annual) • Access (ease of obtaining) • Nutritional value for promoting animal health and productivity • Discounts for buying in bulk
Ask the community helper to list identified factors along the top row of the matrix.
Please note: As a facilitator, ensure that the nutritional value for promoting animal health and productivity is included in the matrix if not already identified by participants so that the assessment of costs and benefits of different feed types do not solely consider factors important to households.
Step 3
Facilitate the group to fill in the matrix. Consider using any combination of writing, drawings, symbols, number scoring (e.g. 🙂/😐/☹️, +/-) and/or locally available materials to complete the matrix so participants can understand and discuss it.
Step 4
Review the matrix with participants to assess the costs and benefits associated with changing feeding practices to improve animal welfare.
Use the following guiding questions to facilitate the discussion:
• Which of these feeds do you currently use? • What is the cost of the feed currently being provided (allow participants to specify in terms that are relevant to them e.g. daily/weekly cost)? • Do you think it would be better to use a different formulation of feed than you currently use given each type of feed has a different potential benefit for your animals? • What feeds/formulations would have the highest nutritional content and greatest benefit for animals at lowest cost for households? • Are there opportunities to adopt these improved formulations of feed through collective action/purchase to get a reduced group rate? • What steps would you take to put these solutions into practice?
Based on the discussion, prompt the group to decide on what actions they wish to take, any support needed, and responsible parties, and add them to the community action plan.
Step 5
The matrix should be documented, either through photos or recreated on paper. Copies should be made and distributed to the group for their records and for reference for future discussions and action planning. Add a copy to your project action tracker, along with any identified needs for support or actions that need to be taken by the project.
Step 6
The diagram 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 and note preferred resource and service providers.
Facilitator’s Notes: Cost-benefit analysis
Participants should be sensitized to the nutritional value of different feed types available in their locality and the benefits to promoting animal welfare using easily understood local language. Ideally, this would happen shortly before this activity is conducted.
It is useful for professionals, such as vets or community animal health workers, to be present for this activity to advise on the nutritional content of different feeds to promote understanding and accurate accounting of potential costs and benefits to animals of different feeds and support development of a locally appropriate feeding plan.
Make sure that participants consider more than just the financial costs when deciding whether to change feeding practices. Ensure that planned changes do not reduce household costs at the expense of animal welfare.
This tool is best conducted with participants’ who have already been introduced to concepts of animal welfare, understand animals’ needs and best practices. Consider using any or all of the following tools before undertaking a cost benefit analysis:
In contexts where male and female household members have different animal-related roles and responsibilities (e.g. ownership, care, use, financial decision making), conduct this activity with all household members who have key roles and responsibilities associated with the specific animal welfare practices being assessed, and for which change is desired.
If literacy amongst participants is low, consider filling in the matrix using symbols, drawings, or number scoring rather than written text to represent general concepts (e.g. 🙂/😐/☹️, +/-). The facilitator is responsible for asking questions and facilitating discussions about representations in the matrix to promote understanding and engagement of all participants. See example in animal feed cost-benefit analysis.
It is common for participants to start by analyzing the financial costs and benefits of alternative animal welfare practices and naturally seek out the cheapest options. Your role as a facilitator is to ensure that animal welfare costs and benefits are included in the discussions, along with their related implications on animal-owning households.
Focus on assessing only a few top priority animal welfare practices at a time to reduce the likelihood that participants’ become overwhelmed and/or demotivated to change as a result of the number of changes they are being asked to consider. This is important if the changes are perceived as challenging or high risk to adopt. However, when new practices or behaviours are relatively easy to adopt with little risk or cost (e.g. grooming), it may be possible to assess more than a few without overwhelming participants.
As changes in existing practices are achieved and/or new priorities emerge, consider repeating this activity with other animal welfare and management practices.
Next Steps
Add identified misconceptions or gaps in knowledge/understanding to your project action tracker, along with any of the community’s plans for outreach, trainings or experiential sensitization/learning activities.
Use the following tools as reflective learning exercises to understand whether any of the originally perceived costs and benefits were realized as a result of adopted changes:
Participants may monitor animal-based welfare indicators to assess changes in animal welfare resulting from their changes in practice. Consider using animal-based welfare indicators developed in the following exercises:
Most communities may not know how best to apply the Cost-benefit analysis tool (T15) to motivate groups to improve the welfare of their working animals. The animal welfare snakes, and ladder game provide a fun and entertaining way for the communities to apply the cost benefit analysis tool: The tool is adapted from the traditional ‘snakes and ladders’ game.
Tool purpose:
Time needed:
To engage the interest of participants and increase their collective knowledge about animal management and motivates them to act on poor welfare practices.
2 hours
Materials needed:
Chart paper or a piece of cloth, markers, or other locally available resources, such as cards, photos, bottle tops, leaf’s, stones, etc.
Stages of Behaviour Change: Pre-contemplation Stage, Contemplation Stage
Project Support: Participatory Learning and Action Tools
Specific Topics: Animal Husbandry and Management; Animal Handling; Animal Welfare, Feelings and Needs; Community Change Agents
Figure T16: Illustrated example of original large cloth board of Snakes and ladders game developed by Brooke Egypt, Cairo (2009).
Animal Welfare Snakes and Ladders Game
Step 1
For this game you need to prepare beforehand. The common Snakes and Ladders board game is used for the exercise, either the small size available in the market, or you can make a big version using large sheets of cloth or paper. The game has between 50 and 100 squares in a matrix. Ladders and snakes are drawn or painted on, connecting different squares (see Figure T16b)
To convert the game for animal welfare cost-benefit analysis, two types of information need to be collected before starting:
• Existing animal management or work practices which are positive/good. • Existing animal management or work practices which are negative/bad.
These practices need to be recorded in advance on cards, using words, symbols, or photos. Place one card in the square at the top and bottom of each snake, and one at the top and bottom of each ladder. Snakes are usually associated with cost or loss and ladders with benefit or gain. This cost or loss and benefit or gain can be expressed in both welfare and financial terms. For example, bad hoof care practices can lead to lameness (pain and poor welfare for the animal) as well as three days’ loss of work for the owner, costing them a certain amount of money a day. Alternatively, causes and effects can be put at opposite ends of the snakes and ladders. For example, the card at a snake’s head could show a lame animal, while the one at the tail could show poor hoof care practices (bad quality shoeing or untrimmed feet).
Step 2
Normally six to eight people play the game together using dice. Each participant is represented by a different counter or object (such as a bottle top, leaf, or stone) placed on the first square. Everyone gets a chance to play by rolling the dice in turn. At the beginning somebody must roll a six before the game can start. Then each player moves their counter the same number of squares as he or she rolls on the dice.
Step 3
When a player’s counter lands on a square containing a card or photo, the card is turned and discussed by the players. If a player reaches a square showing the head of a snake, the counter must be moved down to the tail of the snake. When a player reaches a square at the bottom of a ladder, they can climb the ladder to reach the square at the top.
Before moving from a snake’s tail, players must describe a situation that they have experienced which is like the one shown on the card. Encourage the group to discuss this and decide what types of action would turn the cost into a benefit, before moving on to the next player.
Facilitation Notes
Consider using many variations of this game, such as placing question cards about good and bad animal management practices in random squares on the board.
Consider using a large board so that players can walk around it to play.
The game can be used with both adult and children with great success.
Next Steps
The tool can be supplemented with the following tools to determine if there have been any changes in motivation of the community towards improving their animal welfare and the value they place on the animal, as well as their knowledge on how to best take care of the animals:
‘If I were an animal’ is a tool specifically designed to put the animal and its welfare at the centre of community analysis and discussion and is very popular in animal-owning communities. It enables people to experience the point of view of the working animal by asking them to reflect on the question: ‘If I were an animal, what would I expect from my owner or carer?’ This tool is a good follow up to animal body mapping (T20) and animal feeling analysis (T19).
Tool purpose:
Time needed:
• To raise awareness of animals’ needs and promoting positive welfare states • To understand the effects on animals and humans when animals’ needs are not met • To identify the perceived extent animals’ needs are being met within the community • Can support identification of indicators related to animals’ body and behaviours, husbandry and management practices, and effects of animal’s welfare on people’s lives • To identify perceived animal welfare issues and gaps in knowledge to support intervention planning
1.5 - 2 hours
Materials needed:
Sticks, coloured powder or chart paper, cards, markers, stones, beans, seeds or other locally available materials. Picture of an animal if one is available.
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, Capability, Motivation
Stages of Behaviour Change: Pre-contemplation Stage, Contemplation Stage
Project Support: Participatory Learning and Action Tools, Needs Assessment, Monitoring and Evaluation
Specific Topics: Animal Husbandry and Management; Animal Handling; Animal Welfare, Feelings and Needs; Livelihoods; Compassion / Empathy, Community Change Agents / Resilience
If I were an animal…’
Figure T17 shows the completed ’If I were an animal’ diagram developed by a group of animal owners as one of the first steps in a participatory welfare needs assessment. They identified five expectations that their animals have of them as owners in order to survive and thrive: humane handling (no beating), no over-loading, timely treatment, sufficient feed/fodder and sufficient water. In the second circle they scored their present practices out of ten: they scored lowest on humane handling (no beating) and highest on sufficient food/fodder. Through discussion, the group identified the effects of not meeting their animals’ expectations on the animal, including fear, lameness, weakness and wounds, including where they would look for the specific behavioural and physical signs resulting from not meeting their animals’ expectation. Finally, they identified the effects on the human owners, including loss of income and aggressive/scared animals that are more difficult to handle. These effects were recorded and used by the group to assess their animals during an Animal welfare transect walk (T22).
'If I were an animal'
Step 1
Start by encouraging participants to see the world from their animals’ point of view. Ask what expectations their animals have of them to have a happy and healthy life. If they are struggling with this concept, ask them what they need as humans to be happy and healthy, then extend the question to their animals. At this point, the group should start identifying expectations animals have of their owners. Ask the community helper to write the expectations on cards for everyone to see or use representative drawings.
When participants have finished identifying their animals’ expectations of them, it is the facilitator’s responsibility to ensure that all welfare components have been considered. Use the following guiding questions as needed to facilitate participants to identify their animals’ expectations of them in terms of any of the following domains of welfare which they have not yet considered:
• Health - What do animals need/expect of owners to be healthy? (Disease prevention, timely treatment, proper fitting equipment) • Nutrition - What do animals need/expect of owners for good nutrition? (feeding & watering) • Environment - What do animals need/expect of owners in their environment? (Comfort, rest, temperature, shelter) • Behaviour - What do animals need/expect of owners to express their natural behaviours? (Freedom of movement, social interaction with other animals)
Please note: The facilitator should group/organise similar expectations into one category and explain the reason for the grouping (only if the anticipated effects of the expectation not being met are the same). For example, if the community identified ‘free access to water’ and ‘clean water’, consider consolidating the two examples into one ‘free access to clean water’ category.
Once the list is complete, ask the community helper to record the group-identified expectations on cards using words, symbols, or local materials.
Step 2
Next, ask the community helper to draw a big circle on the ground or on paper and place an animal in the centre. If you carry drawings or models of animals with you, such as the one used for animal body mapping (T20), put one of these in the centre of the circle to represent the animal instead.
Step 3
Once all cards have been placed, ask participants which of the actors support their animals specifically. Mark the card with coloured dot or sticker representative of the animal. The more the dots or sticker representing the animal are placed on an actor, the more support the actor provides.
Step 4
Ask participants to identify which relationships are accessible by men, women, or both, by placing a different indicative mark on the card (either using pens or stickers, or bean types). If the relationship is accessible to both men and women, ask whether accessibility is equal for both sexes. You may wish to place a > / = / < in between the representative marks or objects to indicate which sex has greater access. If it is just one group (e.g. only men) then this step is not necessary.
Step 5
Once the social Venn diagram is complete, encourage participants to discuss what it shows (if not already identified through previous discussions).
Consider using the following questions as a guide:
• Why are some relationships perceived to be more or less important? • Why are certain actors more important for men or women? (If identified) • Are there differences between men, women and/or children within the household? • Why are some actors positively or negatively affecting people and their animals? • What changes in this network could improve yours and/or your animals’ lives? • What can you as an individual or group do to improve your relationships with these actors? • What have you learned because of participating in this activity?
Initiation Phase:
Step 6
The diagram 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.
Planning Phase:
Step 7
Have the community helper record any actions the group agrees to the community action plan. Record the community’s agreed actions and activities in your project action tracker and support the community by following up with any identified key stakeholders.
Facilitator’s Notes: ‘If I were an animal’
Consider conducting an animal feeling analysis (T19) in a prior session to assess the positive and negative factors that influence how animals feel and behave.
Ideally, this exercise should be carried out with 15-20 participants in order have everyone input into the discussion. If the group is large, consider having a second facilitator and break the group into two.
Encourage everyone to express their own views and avoid using only one person’s examples or contributions for the diagram. Allow enough time to discuss participants’ own beliefs and traditional animal management practices.
It can be helpful to have pictures/diagrams on hand that represent the possible effects on animals when their expectations are not met, which may be used instead of hand writing. This can support sensitization and be used in situations where literacy is low.
Next Steps
Follow up with the T22 Animal welfare transect walk to support the assessment and monitoring of animals’ welfare and identification of common welfare problems to inform action planning.
As a first step, the facilitator should prepare a list of the observable indicators derived from identified expectations and effects which reflect animal-based indicators (body and behavioural related indicators), resources, and management practices. In addition, animal-based welfare indicators identified through T19 ‘Animal feeling analysis’, and/or T20 ‘Animal body mapping’ exercises can be used to inform indicator selection for the transect walk. This list of indicators can then be presented back to the community to agree on the criteria which defines each in terms of good, moderate, bad condition/state (green, yellow, red).
Consider using the ‘effects on humans’ identified in step six to inform human indicator selection if part of the project.
Address any identified gaps in knowledge through sensitization or training sessions. It is recommended to conduct this prior to undertaking any community-based action planning.
Any identified gaps can be examined in more detail using the following tools, especially prior to undertaking any community-based action planning:
T21 Animal welfare practice gap analysisto promote understanding of the drivers of gaps in animal welfare practices, such as lack of motivation, resources, or knowledge that can be used to develop targeted behavioural change strategies.
T25 Problem animal to identify the root causes of the different animal welfare issues observed on the body of the animal and inform action planning to address them.
T26 Animal welfare cause effect analysis to explore the root causes of specific animal welfare issues and promote understanding of the effects of the issue on animals and people as a means to generate improved motivation to take action and inform action planning.
An adaptation of a traditional transect walk [48], this animal welfare transect walk can be used as part of a participatory animal welfare needs assessment of the welfare status of animals. It encourages participants to make direct observations of the animals themselves by looking at the animals, the resources in their environment and the owner’s, user’s, carer’s handling and management practices. This is a useful tool for exploring animal welfare conditions and the realities of resources available to animals within a community.
The findings from this exercise, coupled with analysis from the contributing root causes for any welfare problems (T21, T25and/or T26) can be used to prepare animal welfare improvement plans for individual or groups of animals. It can also be used to monitor changes in animal welfare over time if conducted at different points in time, and recorded observations compared to assess change.
Tool purpose:
Time needed:
• To identify which animals are in the best/worst condition and have the best/worst welfare. • To identify the most common animal welfare problems within the community • To understand which welfare issues owners, users, carers prioritize. • To inform community action planning and target capacity building activities to address community-identified priority welfare issues. • To identify which owners, users, carers may be good candidates to target as animal welfare champions in the community, when used in conjunction with the results from T1. Using these two tools together should identify individuals with the highest potential to be exemplary champions and potential mentors to others.
5-10 minutes for each animal in the walk + 1 hour for discussion
Materials needed:
Sheets of paper, pen, coloured markers (red, yellow, green)
Project Support: Participatory Learning and Action Tools, Needs Assessment, Monitoring and Evaluation
Specific Topics: Animal Welfare, Feelings, and Needs, Animal Husbandry and Management; Community Change Agentsnts / Resilience
Animal welfare transect walk
The animal welfare transect walk gives a more complete and detailed view of animal welfare because the animals are present for the group to examine, whereas the previousanimal welfare mapping exercise (T1) or body mapping exercise (T20), only gives an overall ‘bird’s-eye’ view of the animal conditions in a community, as described by their owners without the animals present. In this way, the transect walk can strengthen or triangulate the information from these mapping exercises.
An animal-owning community carried out an animal welfare transect walk using a green, yellow, red traffic light system to score 25 animal welfare indicators that they had identified during their previous discussions and exercises, including 5 that directly relate to owner and carer behaviour (environmental factors). In this example, environmental factors were included because participants’ had a good understanding of animal welfare issues at the activity was carried out. However, it is also possible to modify this tool by using only animal condition indicators, which may be helpful in when participants have not yet gained a good understanding of factors contributing to good animal welfare.
Figure T22a Animal welfare transect walk recording sheet using traffic light signals
After the walk, the owners sat down together and analysed the score for each individual animal by summarizing the vertical columns on their recording sheet. In this example, Ahmad’s animal was found to be in the worst condition, with 11 red (‘bad’) and 2 amber (‘medium’) marks, followed by Walia’s animal which had 6 red and 2 amber welfare issues. After looking at all the individual animals, the group then summarized the horizontal rows to find out which welfare issues were most common in their village. Shelter cleanliness was the biggest issue in the community, with five of eight animals marked red. The group followed this exercise with a root cause analysis (consider using T25andT26) and inserted the results in the community action plan for action by individual owners and collectively.
Animal Welfare Transect Walk Using Traffic Light Signals
Step 1
Explain the purpose of the animal welfare transect walk to the group and involve all participants in the process of decision-making about which indicators of good and poor animal welfare are going to be observed. Create a safe learning environment at the start of this activity if this tool is being used as entry at Initiation phase to nurture positive motivation for further engagement.
To facilitate discussion and identification of observable animal welfare indicators, consider referring to the outputs of one or more of the following tools if already conducted:
Depending on participants’ understanding of animal welfare issues at the time this activity is carried out, it may be appropriate to focus only on indicators of animal body condition and consider adding indicators related to environmental/owner practices as the tool is used repeatedly and community participants’ understanding of animal welfare improves.
Alternatively, as the facilitator, you have an important role here: to check that the list represents all aspects of animal welfare as sometimes we find that the owners’ checklist only contains signs of physical welfare. If you notice this, it may be helpful to ask probing questions to encourage them to think about observable indicators of their animals’ welfare in terms of the five domains of animal welfare (e.g. nutrition, health, environment, behaviour, and mental state). After the group has finalized their list, sit together with them and check whether all aspects of welfare are covered.
Discuss the agreed animal welfare indicators thoroughly with all members of the group as well as the animal owners and carers from each household visited and agree a score for each one.
Step 2
Once the group has decided which observations to make, agree how the observations and discussions will be captured or recorded and who will take responsibility for this. Ask the community to decide what symbols will be used to record the result of each observation.
Examples include:
• Traffic light signals: good/best animal condition shown with green dot, moderate issues with animal condition with amber/yellow dot, worst condition with a red dot. Sometimes just red and green are used. • A tick/check mark might be used for good and a cross for bad. • Instead of a traffic light system, numerical scores might be assigned. For example: Red/cross = 0, Yellow/amber = 1, Green/tick/check = 2. If only red/green are used, then Red = 0 and Green = 1.
Step 3
Decide whose animals will be visited and the route of the transect walk. Fix a time when the group will go on the walk. It is essential that the owner and family of each animal visited are present when the group is visiting his or her animal and the surroundings.
Step 4
The community group should walk the route together, visiting all the households where animals are kept and the surrounding areas to look at each animal carefully. The group will often wish to make additions and alterations to the agreed observations. Any animal welfare issues which have emerged from other tools and exercises may also be discussed with the group during the walk.
Step 5
After returning from the walk, ask the group to summarize and analyse their record sheets:
• Have the participants add up the scores or numbers of red, yellow/amber, and green dots vertically to give a summary of the welfare problems of the animals. This can be used by the group to formulate individual action plans for owners. • Adding up the scores or dots horizontally will give a score for the whole community or group for that welfare parameter and add identified welfare issues to the “issues” column of the Community Action Plan. • Come to a consensus on the animal welfare successes and problems and discuss possible contributing factors. Discussion questions might include: - What welfare indicators are most in need of improvement and which are best performing? What are the reasons? - Why did some participants score higher than others? What are they doing differently than others who had lower scores? - What are the implications of these welfare issues on their animals’ physical and mental state, and on the lives of different household members? For example, do these welfare issues impact women, men, boys, or girls differently? - What could feasibly be done to improve their animals’ current welfare situation and replicate successes?
Record any identified ‘actions to be taken’ in the relevant column of the community action plan and have participants agree on a frequency to animal welfare transect walk activity to monitor progress (monthly, quarterly, etc.).
Facilitation Notes
If there are large numbers of animals, carry out the same exercise over several days so that all animals or a representative number of animals and households are covered.
This exercise can take considerable time, so discuss this in advance with the group and agree a suitable time to set aside for doing it.
If this exercise is planned to be undertaken in the project initiation phase or to support rapport building, it is imperative to create a safe and learning environment and build understanding about why scoring is part of the exercise.
It is helpful for participants to have a general understanding of animal welfare and related animal husbandry and management best practices prior to conducting this exercise. Consider conducting the following activities to raise awareness of animal welfare, feelings and needs, and help inform the identification of animal welfare related indicators to use during the transect walk:
T17 ‘If I were an animal’: raises awareness of what animals’ need and how they depend on people experience positive welfare states
T19 Animal feelings analysis: helps promote understanding of animal feelings and related physical expressions and behaviours indicative of those feelings.
T20 Animal body mapping: helps identify animal-based indicators of welfare status which can be used in the transect walk, and can serve as a useful sensitization exercise improve understanding of indicators of good and bad animal welfare.
Decide with the community in advance whose animals will be visited and the route of the transect walk. Fix a time when the group will go on the walk. It is essential that the owner and family of each animal visited are present when the group is visiting his or her animal and surroundings.
Animal welfare transect walks may be repeated at regular intervals and the results compared with previous walks. This enables participants to monitor and evaluate changes in the welfare status of individual animals, and changes management practices and availability of animal-related resources.
Next Steps
Once the participatory animal welfare needs assessment is complete, you can prioritize issues to address using one of the following tools:
Alternatively or in addition, you can explore the causes and effects of welfare issues by following the transect walk up with one of the following activities
Below is an overview of the community action planning process covered by steps within the planning phase of the community development approach:
Figure 37: Overview of the Community Action Planning Process
Beginning with a participatory welfare needs assessment (PWNA) helps put the animal itself to the centre of the group’s analysis by looking at the present welfare status of their animal/s. This process sensitizes owners to their animals’ needs and feelings and the ways in which these are expressed through an animal’s behaviour or body language.
Use the methods in this section to conduct and record data for a baseline assessment to determine:
The percentage of people who (do not) practice the promoted behaviours.
The existing pre-conditions (identified barriers/motivators) for practicing the desired behaviour (e.g. people’s knowledge, availability of resources).
Animal welfare indicators if an animal welfare assessment was not conducted at the start of the project initiation phase.
Having recorded a baseline of where animal welfare and associated husbandry and management practices are before any intervention enables assessment of the extent of behaviour change during monitoring and evaluation.
2.1.1 Analyse animal welfare needs and identify indicators for assessing the extent their needs are being met
The focus of this step is to support the group in building a common understanding of welfare based on the five domains. It will also enable them to recognize how aspects of good welfare and poor welfare are expressed by animals’ appearance and behaviour by facilitating the group’s analysis of how animals feel and what they need for their well-being.
In this section you will facilitate the group to:
Identify the needs of animals.
Analyse how far the animals’ needs are being met by everyone involved with their care regime.
Analyse the effects on animals when their basic needs are not fulfilled.
Identify the physical and behavioural signs of each need.
Organize a group meeting and facilitate the group to identify animal welfare needs and what it looks like when these needs are not met. To start the process of discussing animal needs, consider using Animal body mapping (T20) where the group identify welfare issues and their perceived causes on a drawing of their animals’ bodies and discuss what they perceive to be good and bad indicators of welfare. The Thriving not surviving (T18), and Animal feeling analysis (T19) tools can help to examine how the animal may experience life and how people can influence those emotions both positively and negatively. ‘If I were an animal’ (T17) may then help the community to determine to what extent animal needs are being met within the community and can support identification of welfare issues, indicators they can use and any knowledge gaps.
A list of an animal’s welfare needs will be developed by the group during these exercises and information to assist this process can also be found in the Animal Welfare and Communities Learning Module Part 1: Understanding animal welfare. These tools help to move people from looking at solely animal-related resources and services to observing the animal directly and seeing what animals can tell them about their own needs. They put the animal at the centre of analysis. Support group members in coming to common agreement on what they perceive to be good animal welfare and animal husbandry and management practices within their local context.
To support this process, consider populating a five domains framework with their animals’ needs and the equivalent human behaviours that would support meeting them, like the example provided in the facilitator resource 9. Example of Five Domains of Animal Welfare for Donkeys Linked with Human Behaviours. It is important to support the group in defining a list that represents all aspects of animal welfare not just those signs of physical welfare. Ask probing questions to encourage them to think about observable indicators of their animals’ welfare in terms of the five domains of animal welfare (e.g. nutrition, health, environment, behaviour, and mental state).
Next the group need to agree on how these animal- and resource or behaviour-based indicators will be scored to enable assessment of animal welfare and monitoring of changes. Participants write or draw the indicators as a list that can be used for assessing their own animals. The group then comes to a consensus on how each indicator will be scored and decide the exact definition for each score. Refer to the Animal Welfare Transect Walk (T22) instructions for determining scoring. The simplest scoring uses a traffic light system, over time communities will often shift to a more complex numerical system as the group builds experience and confidence assessing their animals’ welfare.
2.1.2 Conduct participatory welfare needs assessment to understand the welfare status of animals within the community
Facilitate the group to assess the welfare status of an animal, by looking at the physical condition of its body and observation of its behaviour. The Animal feeling analysis (T19) and Animal body mapping (T20) tools are helpful here. Identify things that may directly or indirectly affect the welfare of their animals (also refer to previous community needs assessment section 1.2). These include management practices, owner behaviour, resources, stakeholders and the environment, the Animal welfare practice gap analysis (T21) will assist here.
With the group, assess the level or severity of various welfare problems and their contributing factors. Conduct another Animal welfare transect walk (T22) now the community has greater awareness of how to assess animal welfare. This transect can be undertaken by men, women or both together, this process allows exploration of animal welfare conditions and assesses the realities of resources available within the community. The process of joint analysis leads to individual as well as collective action and increases understanding of the need for change and helps support people’s progress through the stages of change from pre-contemplation to the preparation stage.
Once completed, convene the group to sit together and summarise the findings on a chart to draw conclusions. If the walk has been carried out on more than one day, it is useful to hold a group discussion at the end of each day, with a final meeting on the last day of the exercise. The group summarizes the findings for each individual animal and for all the animals together. In particular, the group draws out the indicators that scored red (bad condition), for individual animals and for the village all together. This will generate a list of welfare issues for prioritizing during the next step of community action planning. As community members score themselves during the participatory welfare needs assessment, community facilitators can probe and listen for change talk to gauge different individual’s stages of change.
Tools and resources helpful to supporting this step include:
