Effective outreach messaging is key to delivering sustainable changes to improve animal welfare. This resource will outline how to develop your messaging strategy; the psychological and societal drivers to consider that will influence the content and design of the messaging; and how to design and deliver messaging in the most effective way to be heard, accepted, and ultimately change behaviour. Follow the steps outlined in the Community Development, Community Engagement, and Societal Outreach and Campaigns Approaches to gather the information you need to generate a greater understanding of your target audience, including barriers that might prevent behaviour change, and what messaging and communication mediums may work best for the specific audience you aim to target.
Stages of Change: Pre-Contemplation Stage, Contemplation Stage
Project Support: Facilitator Resources, Training
Specific Topics: Outreach and Communication,Community Change Agents
ATTENTION!
Communication is a two-way process; it is as important to listen as it is to speak. Listen to feedback given by your target audience, ask for their guidance and then actively listen to their response, and avoid imposing your own ideas without giving full credence to theirs. Your target audience will teach you about their community, so listen and observe carefully.
1.1 Developing your messaging strategy
No community is homogenous, so it is critical to consider the following as you develop ideas (adapted from [32]):
Who do you want to communicate with?
Are there potential supporters or barriers to communication? You need to ascertain who the allies and gatekeepers are to the information you want to communicate i.e. those who may support or regulate the way messaging can be designed and disseminated? You will need to need to anticipate reactions when developing/framing the messages so ensure you work with these allies and gatekeepers to facilitate the effectiveness of the communication.
Do you need to tailor messages for different target audiences? Are you trying to change the behaviour of animal owners, or perhaps people who offer resource provision for animal owners, or those at a higher level of leadership within a community?
Why should your message matter to your audience?
What are the differences within your target audience you need to consider, such as values, social norms, beliefs, religions, traditions, power dynamics and varied experiences because of intersecting issues in their lives?
Does everyone in your target audience have a similar capacity and motivation for change? For example, are there differences in literacy levels, knowledge, and access to resources or wide socio-economic divides? Does everyone have the same need or want to change?
What is the main overarching narrative any messaging needs to convey?
What are your communication goals? Key messages need to support these goals. Try to keep specific goals to only one or two; distribution of resources over too many goals will dilute messaging and reduce the likelihood of behaviour change.
What are your messaging needs - are they needed to support a long term or short-term subject?
How does your messaging create a sustainable vision for the future – do you know what that might look like?
How widely do you want to disseminate information? (this may also depend on your organisation’s targets, which will influence how accessible it needs to be to a wider audience) A small, more personalised approach can be more effective but is more resource heavy, than a larger scale approach, which is less resource intensive, reaches a greater audience but may cause less degree of change [88].
How do the audience share information between themselves, and how do they most readily receive information?
Your message is the core information you wish to communicate, through whichever media you have decided will be most effective within your target audience (refer to Societal and Campaigns Approach for more information about types of communication media). Your messaging needs to persuade people that they need to change, though of course behaviour change is not as simple as telling someone they need to change. People need to be supported and given opportunities to explore the problems and generate ideas for possible solutions - giving them ownership of the changes they need to create ( [89]). Bear in mind you will never attain 100% uptake of any behaviour change target, people are individuals with differing priorities and pressures.
1.2 Psychological and societal drivers your messaging strategy needs to consider
Behaviour is incredibly complex so effective messaging to create sustainable behaviour change needs to consider how all the following drivers’ interplay and influence each other, for example, knowledge can influence attitudes but then changing attitudes can lead to a person seeking out more knowledge; internal and external drivers can be interdependent [90]. Also refer to the facilitator resource 2. Essential communication skills for promoting behaviour change.
1.2.1 Internal and External Drivers
Internal and external drivers must be considered when designing messaging for human behaviour change. The following section outlines different internal and external drivers influencing people’s behaviours.
Social norms are the informal rules and understandings everyone abides by [91] and are an important driver in behaviour change; what people see others doing may be more likely to encourage them to adopt the behaviour [90]. However, social norms can also create barriers to positive behaviours by the persistence of negative behaviours that are perceived as acceptable within that community [91]. Social norms as drivers of behaviour make perfect sense; if we see others performing a behaviour, we can see that it works, and we can also observe the method. People are drawn towards those who behave the same way and avoid those who deviate (generally!). Using messaging that harnesses social and descriptive norms may increase the effectiveness of the information you are trying to convey, particularly when the information is included as part of guided group discussion [90]. For example, highlighting how a target behaviour has benefitted or been adopted by a proportion of people already within their community, is more likely to influence uptake, than communicating about social responsibility towards animal welfare improvement. Be careful when developing messaging, as highlighting the frequency people engage in undesirable behaviours can also increase the likelihood of other people adopting these behaviours for the same reasons as previously mentioned. People are highly social, so if they believe an undesirable behaviour is common within their community your message could have the opposite impact to the one you are expecting [90, 89].
Introducing this concept in your messaging is important to overcome barriers such as those mentioned previously, in the maintenance of negative behaviours due to social norms. Introducing shared values, a value-based approach, or thinking about the values needed to grow within the community to move towards positive behaviour change, can create useful dialogue about the similarities we share with the audience and enables diverging behaviour to be reframed within a more acceptable vision [91]. Values determine a person’s willingness to change, their openness to new information and their concern for ‘others’. Although changing people’s values is incredibly difficult, targeting these values when developing messaging can be a very effective method to encourage behaviour change [90].
Attitudes are strong predictors of behaviour when “based on personal experience, specific to the behaviour, and salient”. The most effective messaging considers the credibility of its source (your key influencers), the format your messaging takes and its content. Make messaging applicable and salient for your target audience, something the audience can believe is replicable and beneficial to them in their current environment [90].
In addition, an individual’s beliefs will influence their interpretation and processing of messaging; beliefs are an individual’s assertion that something exists or is true developed from their direct personal exposure to information. People are more likely to accept messaging that is framed in a way that is consistent with their beliefs; if messaging does not challenge their world view, they are less likely to reject it. When people are exposed to messaging that is inconsistent with their beliefs, they are likely to show resistance to the new information and more firmly fix onto their original view; this also has implications when developing messaging as people will most strongly believe the first messaging that is delivered so ensuring it is accurate is essential. Be aware of your own beliefs when developing messaging, incorrect assumptions may cause offence and alienate your audience.
Personal norms will play a part in how willing someone is to take responsibility and change their behaviour. It is difficult to increase someone’s sense of personal responsibility but asking for a level of commitment through your communications can increase the likelihood a person will try to act. This is even more effective when people verbalise or write their commitments publicly rather than in private, but these commitments should always be a voluntary action [90]. When an agreed commitment is written and displayed publicly within a community, those who have joined in with the agreement will have a greater feeling that the behaviour change is being internally driven by their own choices. For behaviour change to be truly sustainable, a person needs to be able to attribute that change to themselves, rather than some external forces. However, there will be differences on how much value is placed on individuals expressing their own individual behaviour, depending on whether communities have interdependent or independent cultures [90].
Emotions are a useful route to encourage sustainable behaviour [90]. Increasing empathy, such as encouraging your target audience to ‘imagine how an animal feels’ or by appreciating some elements of shared experiences with their animals, may promote willingness to try methods of husbandry that are known to be more humane.
Self efficacy or a person’s belief in their ability to perform an action, increases motivation to perform a behaviour [90]. Some members of your target audience, such as those more marginalised or discriminated against, may have less confidence in their ability to create change or make a difference [92, 93]. Using messaging that increases knowledge about the behavioural options available to improve animal welfare, particularly when broken down into smaller manageable steps with regular positive feedback, can support peoples’ perceptions of their ability to change their practices [90]. Messaging may need to be developed that helps support the challenging or broadening of perceptions within the wider public e.g. promoting women as key decision makers in seeking services when this is not typical within their community or how an individual woman perceives themselves.
Encouraging the collaboration of groups of individuals, either as formed memberships or peer to peer, can increase the effectiveness of messaging. Groups of individuals working together may provide a link between individual action attempts and a wider societal reach; working together provides social support and encourages sustaining behaviour change to form habitual patterns. Social capital or the shared bonds, reciprocity and trust encouraged by working together increases obligations and cooperation and is a useful concept to embrace. However, it will not work in isolation if a community does not have the capacity for change (such as a lack of resources, knowledge, power and so on) but embedding messages within social groups is known to increase their effectiveness. Ensuring messaging and communications are participatory in their development increases the chances the behaviour change will be adopted by heightening the sense of group or social identity and empowerment within the target audience [90].
Correct framing will influence how well received and understood your messaging is, and ultimately influence whether people are likely to change their behaviour and/ or attitudes. Incorrectly framed messages may move people into cognitive dissonance and denial, creating a barrier towards any further change [94]; but harnessing dissonance may also motivate behaviour change in a direction more consistent with a person’s attitudes and as the behaviour changes the attitude may change to be more consistent with the behaviour [90].
1.3 How to design and deliver effective messages
Messaging as a journey (adapted from [124])
To provide a good, solid foundation, messaging needs to capture attention and be relevant to your audience:
Where possible, use media or communications that utilise all the senses – people learn and remember in different ways so try to capture the imagination of as many of your audience as possible. Embed messages within the physical environment your target audience frequent and the media sources they tend to utilise [125].
Applicable
Applicable: to real life - tangible, believable, achievable
Make the idea you are trying to convey tangible to that audience – if a concept is tricky to understand make it clearer by relating it to something where they do have experience.
Personalised
Personalised: to your target audience – beliefs, social norms, attitudes etc.,
Use images as close to the target audiences’ experience as possible – it needs to be believable, and people need to feel they too could achieve what is being shown. Use local landmarks, recognisable clothing, types of building, and so on.
(Adapted from [32])
1.3.1 Development of messaging
An effective communication strategy must include well-conceived content, but the delivery, dissemination and execution of the information is key to drawing the audience in whilst also motivating and empowering them to change [97].
Keep messaging simple, avoid jargon or the use of unfamiliar terminology as this will turn a receptive audience into an ambivalent one very quickly.
Use audience guidance to develop messages
Target audiences may adhere to very different values and behaviours in terms of communication styles. Develop relationships and be creative, respect, listen and respond to these differences. It is important to generate messaging that is meaningful to your audience and allow them to be instrumental in supporting that process of change. Prescriptive communications and provision of solutions can create reliance and disempower your audience, and this process can encourage psychological reactance, which creates barriers to change [91, 98]. See Societal Outreach and Campaigns Approach for the practical ways to encourage target audience discussion.
Frame your message
Evaluation of ways that make the behaviour easy or difficult, and whether solutions are simple or require more involved interventions, all impact how messaging is framed and how it will be received. People cannot change their behaviour if the resource required to support that change is not available within their environment or is inaccessible due to its cost or complexity of use [90]. Most messages highlight positive outcomes but sometimes highlighting the losses that may be incurred if a behaviour change is not adopted can be more effective. Emphasising the local and immediate impacts of the issue can encourage your audience to relate to the issue and increase effectiveness of communications [32, 97].
Debunking
Correcting misinformation or myths can backfire, so it is recommended to avoid using this technique in your messaging. Mentioning misinformation can serve to increase familiarity and reinforce the maintenance or adoption of negative undesirable behaviours. If you have no option and this technique must be used, any misinformation debunking should always follow clear evidence containing the correct information [97].
Make messaging specific
Describe actions clearly, in easy steps to improve clarity and comprehension and increase a person’s self-efficacy (see section 1.2.1).
Avoid fear based, threatening or authoritarian/ prescriptive messaging
People react to these types of messages with either problem-focused coping or emotion-focused coping, and responses are heavily reliant on the degree of self-efficacy (see section 1.2.1) and the control people have of their situation. Reactions are likely to lead to avoidance, particularly when dealing with marginalised communities, so this method of messaging should be avoided [32].
Encourage commitment
By getting people to sign up to the project, perhaps those who have signed up or pledged to work at targeted changes get some visible marker that they have joined – such as a badge or other signal that increases the chance of them sticking to the project (people do not like to be inconsistent), which can then encourage peers to want to sign up. Refer to personal norms and social norms in section 1.2.1. for more information. Public commitment to change tends to be effective at sustained behaviour change by transferring motivation from an external source (pleasing others) to an internal one (self-fulfilment) [90, 89].
Provide goals
Encouraging the target audience either individually or together to work towards certain target behaviours can increase the perception of social norms (see section 1.2.1.) and encourage peer-to peer pressure to engage in them.
Make messages memorable
Develop specific prompts to help people remember the behaviour changes when you are clear which behaviour you are targeting, these prompts can also be linked to parts of an established routine to increase the chances of habit formation [91]. If there are barriers to people adopting some behaviours, for instance being unsure about how to treat certain wounds, you could create a card that your audience can use that takes them through the steps (either visually or written depending on literacy) or create a vivid reminder to water their animals that they can attach to somewhere prominent [32, 89].
1.3.2 Delivery of messages
Use a credible source
Pick your spokesperson/s carefully; trust and rapport is an important element of behaviour change [97]. To disseminate some of your messaging you may want to use existing social networks and so enlisting people considered influential within their community is key – refer to Societal Outreach and Campaigns Approach for guidance on how to identify these key influencers. Do not immediately assume the key influencers to be the official leaders within a community. Do your research; key influencers are those who the target audience look up to as valuable sources of credible information and are also those who encounter the greatest number of people [90]. Avoid the use of groups or channels that could increase social divisions, such as strongly political or those from a very different socio-economic background [90].
Avoid solely providing information
This is known to be less effective at promoting behaviour change, although knowledge does matter. Giving people information to enable them to understand their behavioural options and the impact of these options on welfare is important, particularly at low levels of knowledge [90].
Narratives
The use of narratives with compelling storylines and characters that relate to the target audiences’ beliefs and values can emotionally engage audiences and motivate change with greater effectiveness than arguments and information [97].
Behaviour change is dynamic
Not all information will be relevant or most effective at the same time or in the same way [96] – adapt your messaging, accordingly, listen to feedback and for change talk, different messaging will work effectively depending on the Stage of Change of your target audience.
Showcase
Use early adopters of the targeted behaviour change to showcase the benefits in your messaging. Showcasing examples from early adopters serves two purposes, it not only shows the target audience that behaviour change is achievable, which creates social norms and overcomes barriers, but also it increases the commitment the adopter has and in doing so increases the chance the behaviour change will be sustained [89]. These early adopters could also assist by disseminating messaging; encouraging peer to peer or community contact is a major influence on adoption of behaviour changes via social diffusion [32].
Feedback
Effective messaging involves receiving feedback from your target audience, which can help guide and adapt your messaging to make it more effective, but you also have a responsibility to feedback to your target audience. Where target behaviours have been adopted feeding back to your community about, for instance, how many people have reduced the wounds in their animals, or have adopted free access to water provision, can serve to increase the likelihood of the behaviour change being sustained in the longer term.
This PLA may be conducted to assess change in a variety of contexts, and this tool includes guidance for two different versions, including: a) changing trends analysis, and b) before and now change analysis.
T11a: Changing Trend Analysis
A changing trend analysis helps the community to identify changing trends over time, for example over generations. Here, a ‘generation’ refers to people born and living around the same time e.g. ‘grandparents generation’, ‘parents generation’, ‘present generation’ etc. Through discussion of present and past situations, this tool enables participants to identify the significant changes that have occurred over time, promoting a greater understanding of the current situation.
Tool purpose:
Time needed:
• To reflect on changes to the lives of animals and animal-owning households within a community over time: - animal populations - reliance and use of animals - animal husbandry and management practices - disease patterns - availability and use of health services and resources - climate or other environmental factors • To generate discussion about significant changes over time and reasons for any perceived negative changes that have occurred
2 - 3 hours
Materials needed:
Cards, pens, markers, coloured powder, chalk, sticks, tree leaves, coloured cards or other locally available materials.
Keyword Search Tags
Project Phase: Initiation Phase
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Development Approach, Community Engagement Approach
Project Support: Participatory Learning and Action Tools
Specific Topics: Animal Husbandry and Management; Animal Welfare, Feelings and Needs; Animal Health and Services; Livelihoods; Vulnerability / Resilience
Changing trend analysis
Figure T11A-1 Changing trend analysis matrix (analysis criteria on vertical axis, generations on horizontal axis)
Figure T11A-2 Changing trend analysis of changes affecting potters and their working animals over four generations
The completed matrix above is the result of a changing trend analysis carried out with a group of animal-owning farmers. It was used as part of a community needs assessment and shared vision. It shows changes in work type and land ownership, quantity, type and cost of animal feed and fodder, grazing land accessibility and availability, average household income and expenditure, availability of and distance to travel for water, human and animal disease prevalence and treatment options, and changing political situation. As a result of this exercise, farmers were able to identify opportunities to mitigate the trends they identified as negatively impacting their lives and the related welfare of their animals.
Changing Trend Analysis
Step 1
Start by explaining that the purpose of the exercise is to understand how the situation in the community has changed over time, and that the group will start with the present and then look at the past. Then ask the group what changes they have experienced in their lives as compared to the past?
Examples:
• Income-generating activities for men and women (separately) • Household income • Household expenditure
Other human aspects, such as food consumption, health and illness, education, and social groups, such as religious groups, self-help & savings/loaning groups, women’s groups. Access & availability of natural resources, such as water, wood, soil, land, etc.
Then ask about changes they have experienced related to their animals.
Examples include:
• Types of animals • Animal work types • Feed practices • Health/illness • Treatment
Ask the community helper to write all identified changes on cards using words or drawings. Make sure that each criterion is specific, for example if participants say ‘water’ clarity if they mean ‘access and availability of water’. Once all changes have been identified, ask participants to select the cards representing the changes which are most important to them. It is the facilitator’s job to ensure that the ones most important to the project are included.
Step 2
Then ask participants to define a timescale for their analysis. It may be based on generations, such as ‘in our grandparents’ time’, ‘in our parents’ time’ and ‘in our time’, or other important activities, events, or years.
Ask the community helper to draw a matrix on the ground and show the chosen time scale on the horizontal axis along the top of the matrix and place the cards with the trend criteria identified in step 1 down the vertical axis (figure T11A-1).
Step 3
Next, explain to the group that they will complete the matrix and decide with the group how they wish to display the situation for each trend criteria. For example, by scoring criteria that can be measured using seeds or stones (0 to 10 for income/expenditure), and/or drawings, symbols, or words for lists of objects etc. As the group defines the scenario for each trend criteria, ask the helper to represent the situation on cards using the chosen means of display.
Step 4
Once the matrix is complete, record the trend analysis by adding a column labelled ‘analyses to the matrix.
Use the following guiding questions to facilitate a discussion about changes over time:
• What are the significant trends or changes that have occurred over time? • Are these trends/changes positive or negative? • What caused these trends/changes to occur?
In the ‘analysis’ column, write whether the change has been positive or negative and have participants expand on the negative changes. Explore the possibility and interest in taking action to address the identified negative changes.
Step 5
The matrix produced should be left with the community. Take a picture or copy and add it to your project action tracker for future reference and to assist with intervention planning.
Facilitator’s Notes: Changing trend analysis
Include a broad cross-section of animal-owning household members of all ages. Invite 10-20 people to participate in this exercise (e.g. youth, adults, elders).
If it is not possible or locally appropriate to do the exercise collectively with both sexes, conduct the exercise separately with men and women. Each may recall different events and changes due to the impacts that resulted in their lives.
Do not lead participants into identifying changes that are not important to them. While asking probing questions, emphasize identifying changes that they perceive to be important. Events or perceived changes should not be included simply because the facilitator inquiries about them.
Clarify any doubts to understand people’s perceptions about changes over time by reaching consensus amongst participants.
Next Steps
As part of a community needs assessment and shared vision, this activity might accompany one or more of the following tools to get a full picture of community dynamics and needs for project planning:
T1 Mapping to understand which resources and services are important to the community.
T2 Mobility Map to understand where people spend most of their time and how long it takes to get places.
T3 Venn Diagram(T3b Social Networking Venn diagram) to identify key individuals, groups and actors perceived to be most important to people and their animals.
T12 Dependency Analysisto understand animal-owning households’ level of dependency on external actors and their implications on resources and services important to ensuring animals’ welfare.
T11b: Before and Now Analysis Changing Trend
The before and now analysis helps the community to identify changes from the beginning to the end of an animal welfare improvement project. This tool may be used to analyse many different aspects of peoples’ lives and the lives of their animals, including changes in people’s reliance/use of animals, animal care practices, animal disease patterns and related impacts on people, availability and use of animal-related health services and resources, climate or other environmental factors affecting animals and people.
Tool purpose:
Time needed:
• To reflect on perceived changes in the lives of animals and animal owning households within the project period • As a learning and reflection tool to assess perceived changes in animal welfare and people’s behaviours as a result of community/project activities • To determine if there are remaining areas of improvement that can be addressed
2 hours
Materials needed:
Cards, pens, markers, coloured powder, chalk, sticks, tree leaves, coloured cards or other locally available materials.
Keyword Search Tags
Project Phase: Exit & Evaluation Phase
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Development Approach, Community Engagement Approach, Societal Outreach and Campaigns Approach
Behavioural Drivers (COM-B): Motivation
Stages of Behaviour Change: Maintenance Stage
Project Support: Participatory Learning and Action Tools, Monitoring and Evaluation
Specific Topics: Animal Husbandry and Management; Livelihoods; Vulnerability/Resilience
Owners know what to look for when animals being treated by LSP
7
LSP access
Previously free services
Availability better – now have LSP phone numbers
7
Beating
Everyone used to beat their animals
No more beating
6
Figure T11B Before and now results from a group of animal owners in Faisalabad, Pakistan
The matrix in figure 11B was produced by a group of animal-owners at the end of a five year project as part of the community’s self-evaluation. They wanted to determine whether the human and animal welfare changes within their community could be sustained over time without the intervention team. The group compared the situation before the intervention to the present state, analysed what the differences meant and whether they thought that they had the skills, knowledge and tools needed to continue to improve on their own.
The group identified six key areas where change has been observed since the beginning of the animal welfare improvement project: food provision (dietary diversity), water provision (daily increase), local service providers’ skills (improvement), owners’ knowledge of good animal welfare, access to local service providers (LSPs) and beating of animals. After scoring the extent to which the majority of the community had made positive change, the group determined that more work was needed to improve LSP skills, owners’ knowledge of animal welfare, access to LSPs and beating of animals. They added the actions that they would take to the community action plan and set a date for the next meeting to focus on beating, which scored the lowest amongst the positive changes.
Before and Now Analysis
Step 1
Start by explaining to the group that they will be reflecting on changes in the lives of animals and their own community members within the project period, comparing how things were before the project to now.
Step 2
Ask the group about the present situation relating to animals’ care, use and their own livelihood status. Have the group compare the present situation to the past.
Ask:
• What are some of the changes that have resulted since project/community action plan activities were implemented? • How have things changed since the beginning of the project?
As the community comes up with the present situation, have the community helper write the changes with words or symbols on cards.
Examples of change categories might include:
• Men’s/women’s work types • Animals’ usage • Household income, expenditure, credit (group formation) • Land access & usage • Animal and human diseases and treatments • Community dynamics (more cohesion amongst group) • Climate change situation (water/feed storage) • Political situation (changes to laws, by-laws) • Environmental change (infrastructure improvements, increased availability of resources)
Please note: If the community comes up with more than 10 changes, ask participants to select the cards representing the 8-10 changes which are most important to them.
Step 3
Ask the community helper to draw a matrix on the ground or large sheet of chart paper. Label three columns ‘change in project’, ‘before’ and ‘now’. Have the helper place the cards representing the most important changes down the first column under ‘change in project’.
Then, facilitate a discussion on how the present situation has changed since the project started. The past and present situations will be defined by the community through this discussion. As each situation is defined for each of the changes, have the community helper write the results on cards and place the past scenario in the ‘before’ column and the present situation in the ‘now’ column.
Step 4
Have the community helper add a fourth column and label it ‘score’. Ask the community to score out of 10 the proportion of the community who meets the ‘now’ criteria. For example, a score of 10 = everyone has changed; 0 = no change.
Step 5
Once the matrix is complete, discuss the results of the activity with the group.
Follow the discussion by asking:
• Does everyone agree with the results? If yes, why? If no, why not? • What needs to change for everyone to achieve the desired result? - Can you achieve the desired results without our intervention? - If yes, do you feel that you have skills, knowledge, and resources to continue without the intervention team?
If the group determines that not all the project objectives have been met and wish to continue with the project, have the community helper add any identified priorities to the community action plan for later discussion and further planning.
Step 6
The matrix should be documented through photos or recreated on paper. Copies should be made and distributed to the group for their records, future reference and/or action planning. Add a copy to your project action tracker.
Facilitator’s Notes: Before and now analysis
If possible, invite 10-15 people to participate in this exercise.
If it is not possible or locally appropriate to do the exercise collectively with both sexes, consider conducting the exercise separately with men and women. Each may recall different change criteria due to the impacts that resulted in their lives.
Do not lead participants into identifying changes that are not important to them. While asking probing questions, emphasize identifying changes that they perceive to be important. Perceived changes should not be included simply because the facilitator inquiries about them.
Have the community’s original shared vision available for reference during the final discussion.
Next Steps
If the community determines it is satisfied with the changes it has achieved:
Consider using T28 Group Sustainability Mapping tool to help participants in planning to sustain their welfare improvements independently once support from the facilitating organization has ceased.
The facilitating organization may use the qualitative before and now findings of project successes to support project reporting or future funding proposals.
If participants indicate the project activities have not achieved the desired changes, update the community action plan and project action tracker with any new agreed actions. Re-evaluate persistent issues using any or all of the following tools:
T21 Animal Welfare Practice Gap Analysis to identify actions people can take, either individually or collectively, to address gaps in animal husbandry and management to improve animal welfare
This checklist reflects the key skills and observable behaviours for effectively facilitating community participation and empowerment. While these skills may not all be observed or needed for all activities or contexts in which communities’ are engaged, they represent the core competencies desirable in community facilitators. By harnessing these skills, community facilitators can enable community participants to freely express their opinions, ideas, and concerns, feel valued and respected, and help foster their sense of self-efficacy and ownership over change. This resource can be used as a self or peer assessment tool to help identify capacity strengthening needs and areas of improvement, inform training delivery, and support effective delivery of community development or engagement projects.
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Development Approach, Community Engagement Approach
Project Support: Facilitator Resources, Training
Community Facilitation Skills Checklist
Did the facilitator come prepared to ensure activity/discussion ran smoothly and didn’t waste unnecessary time of participants? e.g. appropriate materials, understanding of the activity
Did the facilitator sit/position themselves same level with participants?
Did the facilitator explain the purpose of the discussion/activity before it started, and give an indication of how long it would last?
Did the facilitator ask if participants had any questions before the session/exercise began?
Did the facilitator their unsolicited opinions/information/answers rather than facilitate participants to discuss, reflect, learn, and identify their own ideas?
Did the facilitator use open ended questions to help participants reflect and identify key learnings for themselves?
Did the facilitator prevent domination of the activity/discussion by one or a few people, and encourage participation/input from others?
Did the facilitator encourage equal participation from men and women and/or people who are marginalized or vulnerable?
Did the facilitator encourage even shy/timid participants to speak/participate?
Did the facilitator summarize the discussion and key learnings at the end?
Did the facilitator ask participants for feedback on their experience of the discussion/activity at the end? This is important to understand the perspective of participants and whether they felt time spent was valuable to them, to enable them to make any improvements in the future.
Did the facilitator make plans for follow up with the participants and/or ensure clear understanding of next steps?
Did the facilitator record the outcome/result of the activity to ensure the community has a copy, and relevant information could be used to inform project planning?
Was the facilitator engaging and respectful from the beginning to end of the visit?
For effective facilitation, the community facilitator must process the following skills: -
Actively listen: Listening is the bedrock of good facilitation skills. Effective listening before and during a session/meeting is necessary to create a tailored and relevant learning process.
Ask questions: Ask questions often during the session/meeting. This is a critical facilitation skill to move individual and group sharing and learning forward. Questions can be framed to accomplish different types of responses, such as to gain or focus attention, solicit information, give information, direct the thoughts of others, and close discussions.
Be comfortable with silence: Often, questions are met with silence. Participants may need time to process the question, formulate a response, or think of other questions. However, silence can also mean that participants are confused or frustrated. With more experience, you can read nonverbal cues and know how best to address silence.
Be flexible: You never know exactly how a session/meeting will go, who will be there, and what unexpected events will arise. Be flexible and willing to shorten an activity, add important language to a definition, or adapt an exercise.
Stay focused on objectives: Select just one or two practices to focus on during a session/meeting, so that you can discuss them in more detail. If participant discussions get off-topic, refocus the group by using phrases such as “this is interesting to explore further at another time, but let’s return to the topic.” It is your responsibility to find the appropriate time to intervene, thank participants, and bring the conversation back to the objective.
Use verbal and nonverbal encouragement: By using verbal and nonverbal cues, you can make participants feel more comfortable with sharing their thoughts and ideas. By nodding your head or agreeing with the participants as they are speaking, they will feel encouraged to continue sharing. It is also helpful to foster participation of shy or modest participants.
Foster respect among participants: Mutual respect and trust between you and the participants and among the participants nurtures the learning process. Effective learning is supported through the constructive and supportive feedback of respected peers.
Use participatory activities: When participants actively engage with others, they build capacities that are more effective, memorable, and easy to apply. Mix activity types so that there are opportunities to work alone, in small groups, and in one large group. Everyone in the room is a student and a facilitator.
Build in time for reflection: The most effective learning takes place through “real world” experiences, including the opportunity to reflect, identify patterns, draw conclusions, and derive principles that will apply to similar experiences in the future. Allow time for participants to share their experiences and/or to respectfully share others’ experiences.
Build in time for forward planning: Participants need time to practice their new skills, but also to consider ways in which to change their practices going forward. When talking about behaviour change, always include time to discuss barriers and enablers.
Seek feedback: This will ensure that participants can freely express how they found the process, and what needs to be improved. A sample feedback form that can be adapted is presented below.
The initiation phase is about building rapport within the target community, understanding the local context, animal welfare issues and community interests and dynamics, as well as gauging interest and motivation in engaging with your animal welfare intervention project.
Purpose:
The purpose of this to provide the practitioners with the direction in terms of the information needed for the initiation phase; and where to collect the information. Including the tools that can assist with collecting the information.
Keyword Search Tags
Project Phase: Initiation Phase
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Development Approach, Community Engagement Approach, Societal Outreach and Campaigns Approach
Behavioural Drivers (COM-B): Behaviour Change Diagnosis and Planning
10a. Overview of Useful Information to Collect During Initiation Phase
The initiation phase is about building rapport within the target community, understanding the local context, animal welfare issues and community interests and dynamics, as well as gauging interest and motivation in engaging with your animal welfare intervention project. The following table provides an overview of key understandings you should seek through activities implemented during the initiation phase, as well as potential sources for obtaining relevant information.
Useful Information
Why Important
Sources of Information
Demographic Features: gender, age, literacy, income, social status, religion, population density
People’s circumstances can shape their behaviours, as well as inform which strategies may be most effective for engaging them.
Information collected during initial scoping phase
Daily Routines: where and when most animal owners, carers, and users (of working animals) spend their time during the days
How people spend their time can provide insights on what influences their behaviour and the welfare of their animals, as well as indicate their availability for engagement.
Observations, key Informant interviews, focus group discussions (FGD), survey
Common Desires/Priority Motivations: What are men and women’s common desires for their lives and the lives of their animals/what motivates them? Are there key concerns or issues which preoccupy their thinking? e.g. good income, health, having good community status, been seen as good according to their religion, or ensuring children’s education, having productive animals? And what benefits do they feel their animals contribute to their lives?
This can help us understand people's value, or issues they face, as these are likely to influence people’s motivations and behaviours [72]. Understanding this is useful to framing communications in ways that motivate and support behavioural change to improve animal welfare.
Existing Behaviour: What are men and women’s existing animal use, care, and management practices and what do they like/dislike about them? What animal related resources and services do men and women rely on? What are their priority challenges or concerns related to their animals, and animal related services and resources?
Understanding people’s current animal related practices/behaviours can help us understand what may be leading to observed animal welfare issues and who may be responsible. It is also helpful to understand what people appreciate and don’t about their current practices, so we can gauge perceived benefits and potential barriers to change. This is helpful to understanding whether and how the desired behaviours the project may promote could be perceived as more beneficial and worth practicing by target groups and enable communications to be framed accordingly where possible. In addition, understanding their priority animal welfare concerns, can help you gauge issues people may be more highly motivated to address and indicate potential useful starting points.
Observations, key Informant interviews, in depth focus group discussions, surveys
Animal Related Resources and Service Providers: What animal related resource and services providers exist within the community and what are the available resources and services they can provide?
Understanding what animal related resource and service providers exist within the community can be useful to understanding who you can potentially work with, what resources and services are available, and enable you to understand which may be underutilized based on insights from communities about those which they rely on. Understanding what animal related resources and services are available may be helpful to understanding possible solutions to animal welfare issues
Observations, key Informant interviews, in depth focus group discussions, survey
Influential People/Groups: what people influence men and women’s animal husbandry and management practices? Whose opinions and knowledge do they value and are likely to listen to generally, as well as in relation to their animals?
Helpful to identifying potential partners, groups, and individuals influential within the community who the project can engage as respected leaders or messengers or modellers of change, and/or whose support can be harnessed to promote change. May also help you to understand whose opinions or influence may pose a challenge to people’s adoption of desired changes.
Community Dynamics: what aredifferent members of the animal owning community’s expected social roles, how do they interact and collaborate or don’t amongst and between groups, who is perceived to hold power, and which individual or groups experience discrimination and/or greater opportunities or hardships because of their social status or other demographic characteristics,
Communities are not homogeneous, and it’s important to understand different members of the animal owning community in terms of their expected social roles, how they interact and collaborate, or don’t, amongst and between groups, who is perceived to hold power, and which individual or groups experience discrimination and greater opportunities or hardships because of their social status or other demographic characteristics. This will enable you to better understandintersectionality, and plan and design your project in ways that seeks to promote equality and mitigate the potential of your project to engage in exploitative practices which reinforce discrimination, as well as which may elicit mistrust in the project. This will also help your project allocate appropriate resources (human, financial, etc.) for your project in a strategic way.
Observations, key Informant interviews with organizations operating in the area or other knowledgeable stakeholders/potential change agents.
10b. Example Focus Group Discussion Questions Supporting Initiation Phase Assessments
A focus group discussion (or FGD) is a qualitative research method in the social sciences that employs the use of semi-structured interview led by a skilled moderator to elicit responses and generate discussion among the participants about a subject of interest within a given time.
Focus group discussions should be used when you need to understand an issue at a deeper level than you can access with a survey. They are helpful for adding meaning and understanding to existing knowledge or getting at the “why” and “how” of a topic.
Important guide to follow when designing your FGD questions.
Keep the number of questions reasonable (under 10, if possible). This prevents the participants from getting confused or worn out by a long discussion.
Keep the questions simple and short. FGD participants won’t get the chance to see the questions like in a survey.
Ensure that the wording on questions is clear. Otherwise, participants will end up discussing the question itself, rather than what the question was trying to ask.
Be careful that questions about sensitive issues or topics are asked carefully. Otherwise, the FGD will stop just because people are too embarrassed to answer.
Make sure that questions are worded in a way that cannot be answered with a simple “Yes” or “No” answer. Using words like “Why” and “How” will help elicit better responses from participants.
Question Types
There should be three types of questions in a focus group discussion:
Probe questions: these introduce participants to the discussion topic and make them feel more comfortable sharing their opinion with the group.
Follow-up questions: delve further into the discussion topic and the participants’ opinions.
Exit question: check to ensure that you didn’t miss anything.
Example
Say that you run two different animal welfare programs and you’d like to know why programme A sees better attendance than Program B. You could use the following questions to explore this issue:
Probe Questions:
How familiar are you with our programs?
How often do you attend our programs?
What is your favourite program?
Follow-Up Questions:
What is your favourite and least favourite aspects of Program A?
What is your favourite and least favourite aspects of Program B?
What influences whether you attend a program?
What influences whether your friends attend a program?
If we were to close a program, which one should we close and why?
Exit Question:
Is there anything else you’d like to say about our programs?
The purpose of this phase is to understand the community better, gain trust in each other and create an atmosphere of shared interest in making animal welfare improvements. This phase is different and separate to the scoping assessments done when selecting areas to target for project work. Listen, observe, and demonstrate genuine interest in community members, their lives, values, and what is important to them both generally and in terms of their animals. Here is where relationships are built, understanding is gained about the community, its environment, the stakeholders, and resources; it is all about creating a two-way dialogue.
ATTENTION! During this stage, it is important that no intervention activities are conducted.
Why? • An intervention started without knowledge of local context, animal owning community, their behaviours and practices is likely to be poorly informed, and unlikely to be appropriate or result in desired animal welfare improvements. • An intervention started without genuine rapport with and understanding of the community is likely to be viewed with mistrust. • Use this period to gather baseline date, this will inform your work and ensure you are able to monitor how community development is progressing.
1.1.1 Understand community dynamics and the local context
As an initial scoping exercise, you will want to know who comprises the animal owning community, including their demographics, ages, literacy, religion, ethnicity, incomes, and types of work.
Get to know animal owning families, including women and children, everyone responsible who may be taking some part in the animal care regime. Here the use of Daily Activity Schedule (T4), Seasonal calendar (T6) and Gender Roles and Responsibilities (T5) tools may assist with understanding the routines of animal caring community members. Speak with local veterinary and animal health service providers, animal resource providers (e.g. feed sellers, equipment suppliers, groomers etc.), and anyone else who works with animals, directly or indirectly. Using the Mapping (T1) and Venn diagram (T3) tools will assist with this process.
Figure 34: Example of a Social Network Venn diagram from Kenya
Arrange meetings and identify those interested in working with the project. Remember community members are not a homogenous group so, after an initial meeting with leaders and all interested stakeholders have break out meetings with more specific groups or individuals, such as men, women, and other potentially vulnerable groups to get their unique perspective using observation, key informant interviews (KII), focus group discussions (FGD). Encourage one of the stakeholder members to lead group discussions – this helps to encourage members to speak their minds rather than communicating what they think the facilitator wants to hear. However, a note of caution, sometimes if there are strong hierarchical relationships within a community the inclusion of a neutral facilitator can overcome barriers to expression; so, understand your community and its dynamics before deciding which route to take. Using tools such as Historical timeline (T7) and Changing trend analysis (T11a) can be a useful start to engage the community and generate discussions to investigate timelines around changing practices, resources, and animal welfare, and to identify some of the drivers for change and the root causes of the current situation.
Identify social groups that may be interested in animal welfare, the group may exist to serve a different purpose but may be willing to include an animal welfare element to their activities. Groups identified should show inclusive membership and leadership, be well organised and respected within the community. Ensure women, children and other potentially marginalised community members are included and that their voices are heard. Check 1. Gender mainstreaming checklist and refer to the Gender Equality diagram to assess what kind of gender relationships exist and how existing gender inequalities are dealt with by other programmes or organisations within the region. When identifying suitable groups, the use of a SWOT analysis (see Figure 35) can clarify whether there are any major gaps in the group’s organisation or positive opportunities for involvement; consider their financial management systems, their current or potential involvement in animal welfare related issues, their membership diversity and inclusivity. The following facilitator resources provide more information on group formation, challenges and dynamics: 14. Overview of Community Group Formation Process, and Common Challenges and Factors Influencing Group Success and 15. Templates Supporting Community Based Organisations Governance.
To undertake a SWOT analysis:
Gather a diverse team together to generate ideas
Get everyone to separately write their ideas for each of the four parts of the SWOT analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. This ensures you hear all voices and get a wide diversity of ideas. Do this for 5-10 minutes and repeat for each of the four parts.
Rank the ideas
This process will clarify what a group has to offer, highlight any potential issues associated with working with them and will guide development of actions or tasks which may help overcome these issues or may guide you to decide not to work with the group.
Figure 35: SWOT analysis
1.1.2Build relationships with relevant community stakeholders
When you arrive at the community introduce yourself – explain that you are from an organization interested in supporting communities to work towards sustainable animal welfare improvements in their community. It is important to manage expectations, particularly in poor communities, as your presence cannot solve all the problems the community may be facing.
Different customs and other cultural habits may influence ease of dialogue and development decisions. Be aware many communities, particularly women, will not be used to airing their opinions or speaking freely about their needs. In most settings women can only approach other women to openly discuss. Ask women their preferences and what will make them comfortable before making any assumptions. Be patient, take time to listen.
Engage in conversations – anywhere! Go to speak with people while they are doing daily tasks, lend a hand, go to the local shop, or sit and converse in meeting places. Talk about their lives, their community, its culture, its history and working practices. Try to find out what issues they face, these may directly or indirectly affect animal welfare. Approach people in a culturally sensitive way as you might need to ask their permission to engage about the issues.
Attend important events at the invitation of the community - these occasions often highlight community dynamics and power relations, which are important to understand when deciding who and how to effectively engage when designing and implementing project activities. As you begin to get to know the community where you are working, community members will likely indicate who they feel might be good person/s to motivate other members and lead the development process. Social relationships are a key mechanism for encouraging participation and ultimately driving the process forward
ATTENTION! A supporting agency's 'mission', 'programme' or 'target' is not necessarily seen as important from a community perspective. All development must be guided by, and of priority to, the community members.
Tools and resources helpful to supporting this step include:
This is a simple community visit record template for change agents (or staff), to support them with documenting their work. The template captures key insights and observations, progress, challenges, and follow-up actions. The intention is to enable community change agents to easily record and track the projects. These templates are samples and they can be adapted to fit your context.
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Development Approach, Community Engagement Approach, Societal Outreach and Campaigns Approach
Project Support: Facilitator Resources, Documentation and Reporting
Specific Topics: Community Change Agents
Community meeting discussion notes should include the following suggested report structure. This can be further adapted depending on the need. Depending on the literacy level of community change agents, these contents can also be captured in audio or audio visual mechanisms.
Introduction
Background
Objective of the meeting/visit
Name, number and Composition of participants (gender – males/females participants)
Name of Community change agent(s) or Staff member who visited
Date and venue of the visit
Was it a home to home visit or a group visit or event (The place of visit/engagement (for example, a health centre or school, etc.)?)
Process and Approach
Methods used to actively engage participants (ensuring men’s and women’s active participation)
Participatory/C4A Tools used (if any)
Key Discussion Points and Actions
Emerging themes from the conversations
What decisions were taken, who will be responsible for carrying out the decision, and by what date?
Future as follow-up actions
Summary Action points documented by visiting Community Change Agent or Staff member
Key discussion Points
Action points by community members
Action points by the change agent/Brooke (follow up)
Observations and key reflections by visiting Community change agent or staff member(s)
Did the place and time work well for the conversations? Why/why not?
What went well? What did not go so well? Why? How can this be improved?
Any notable story of change that require follow up or documentation by Brooke/Partner
Animal body parts map, animal body issues map and animal-based welfare indicators map
A body map is a picture an animal showing the parts of its body, their functions, and the body areas affected by wounds or diseases. The map depicts either the whole body, or part of the body, as it is perceived by individuals or a community group. This tool can be used to map animal body parts and wounds or disease symptoms on the body, which can be useful in the concept of a project to gain an understanding of how people understand their animals’ bodies, and their perception of common welfare issues on animals’ bodies. It can also be used in the planning phase to map animal-based indictors of good and bad welfare status, which can help inform indicators used in participatory welfare assessments.
Tool purpose:
Time needed:
Body part mapping • To identify local names for parts of an animal’s body. • To uncover and discuss traditional beliefs about animal body parts. • To explore the different perceptions that people have about their animals’ body parts and their associated roles and functions. • To act as an educational tool that introduces participants to the roles and importance of different body parts.
Animal body issues map • To identify problems on animals’ bodies which they perceive as issues and their believed causes.
Animal-based welfare indicators map • To understand what people perceive to be good and bad indicators of welfare.
2 - 3 hours
Materials needed:
Sticks, coloured powder, chart paper, markers. Broken horse or donkey puzzle if available.
Keyword Search Tags
Project Phase: Initiation Phase, Planning Phase
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Development Approach, Community Engagement Approach
Behavioural Drivers (COM-B): Capability
Project Support: Participatory Learning and Action Tools
Specific Topics: Animal Welfare, Feelings and Needs
T20a: Animal Body Parts Map
This basic animal body parts map allows participants to identify their animals’ body parts, providing an indication of how participants perceive their animals’ bodies.
Figure T20a Simple animal body parts map of a working horse
Ten members of working animal owning households produced the simple animal body map above. The animal owners named all known parts of the animal and provided the local names for each part.
T20b: Animal Body Issues Map
The animal body issues map is a natural follow-up activity to the body part and is useful for understanding what participants perceive as normal versus unhealthy. For example, in places where animals have similar welfare problems, such as being thin, owners often perceive thinness to be normal and do not identify it as a problem. In the example below, participants were encouraged to describe the issues - or problems - that affect each body part. The group drew the identified issues on the animal body map (T20b). They indicated their believed causes (when known) and added them to the map next to the associated issue.
Figure T20b Animal body issue map, indicating body issues and causes on a working horse
Through this exercise, the group identified the following wounds:
Nose due to nostrils being slit
Mouth due to where the bit rests
Eyes due to uncleanliness and dirt
Ears due to cutting
Back due to saddle wounds
Barrel due to friction from cart rope
Pastern/fetlock (above hoof) due to hobbling
Knee due to fall
Dock (tail area) due to cart ties
Rump from use of whip
T20c: Animal-based welfare indicators Map
The animal-based welfare indicators map is a useful follow up activity to the animal body parts map. This activity identifies what the animal-owning households perceive to be good and bad indicators of welfare on an animal’s body.
Figure T20C Animal body indicators map of a working horse
Figure T20C is an example of an animal-based welfare indicator map that was created by members of a working animal-owning community. Participants identified characteristics of what they believed a normal, healthy working animal should look like and wrote the identified healthy indicators next to the associated body parts identified in the first animal body mapping activity. They were then asked to identify unhealthy indicators of the same characteristics, and included those on the map. When participants initially completed the map, they only identified a few indicators associated with poor welfare. At this early phase of community engagement, participants had not yet been introduced to concepts of animal welfare, and the activity identified gaps in their knowledge; for example, they incorrectly identified the presence of frog in their working donkeys’ hoof as a poor indicator of health.
This exercise can be repeated and Figure 20c updated and revised to correct any inaccurate indicators after participants’ complete their first participatory animal welfare needs assessment (PWNA) (see recommended next steps T22 Animal Welfare Transect Walk), where they will learn how to identify good and bad animal welfare states related indicators. Once updated and accurate, this animal body map of welfare issues and indicators can then be used to inform action planning.
Animal Body Parts
Step 1
If the animal parts puzzle is available use this and ask participants to put it together, or alternatively ask them to sketch the body of their animal on the ground or on paper, and to identify the different body parts and the local names used for each body part.
Step 2
Once participants have identified all body parts, initiate a discussion on their perceptions of the role and function of each part. This discussion often creates an opportunity for facilitators to sensitize participants about which body parts are important to animals’ function, which is particularly relevant in relation to working animals.
Animal body issue map
Step 3
Follow step one above, then ask the group to identify issues they commonly perceive on the body of their animals. This may include wounds, symptoms of disease, or other problems with animal health or function which they observe. It is important to allow participants to identify what they perceive to be issues, rather than identify issues you as the facilitator perceive. Encourage participants to draw these issues on the body map or represent those using symbols next to the appropriate body part.
Animal-based welfare indicators map
Step 4
Using the animal body parts map (steps 1 and 2), ask participants how a normal, healthy animal should look. Starting the discussion with the question ‘What parts of the body do you look at when purchasing/adopting an animal?’ can be useful. Through this question, participants will typically start to identify what they perceive as indicators of good animal health or welfare as observed on an animal’s body. Ask them to write or draw symbols representing the indicator next to the associated body part on the map.
As a follow up question, ask participants what poor animal health or welfare would look like, or what they consider to be an indication of poor health or condition when purchasing an animal.
Through the discussion, differences in ideas about indicators will emerge and they will sensitize one another to reach agreement. At this stage, it is common for only a few indicators to be identified, especially related to poor animal welfare conditions. Some identified animal-based indicators may be incorrect, highlighting gaps in knowledge, perception about the animal body part and misguided beliefs of welfare. This is gives rise to opportunities for future sensitization on good and bad welfare states.
Step 5
The animal-based welfare indicators mapping activity may be revisited after conducting an initial participatory animal welfare needs assessment (PWNA) in the initiation/planning phase of the community project cycle (T22 Animal Transect Walk). Through the PWNA exercise, participants gain greater understanding of good and bad welfare states and associated animal-based indicators, which they can use to update, add to, and/or correct the indicators on their initial animal-based welfare indicators map (see figure T20c above).
At this time, the facilitator may ask probing questions about different body parts related to what was observed and learned through the transect walk in terms of indicators of problems and good welfare states. Encourage participants to create a comprehensive body map of animal-based parameters for assessing animal welfare relevant to their local context. These can then later be used to inform indicator selection for future transect walks to support monitor community-based action plans/for individual personal action plan and monitoring.
Facilitator's Notes
This tool has been adapted into a ‘Broken Horse’ jigsaw puzzle, where animal body parts are discussed by reconstructing a wooden jigsaw of an animal. This puzzle version of the exercise is good for starting discussions about animal welfare with children.
Next Steps
Issues and related causes identified through this exercise can provide a preliminary indication of perceived animal welfare issues during the initiation phase. Deeper analysis of root causes can be explored during the community action planning using T25 Problem animal and/or T26 Cause and effect analysis.
Ground truth animal welfare issues identified by participants during the mapping exercise, with animals’ actual observed body condition, which can highlight potential gaps in participants’ understanding of welfare issues.
Sensitize participants on good and bad welfare states and associated animal-based indicators.
Identify the most commonly observed animal welfare issues including animal-based indicators, resource related issues and environmental issues.
1.2.1 Understand the lives of animals and communities who own them
To effectively work with communities to change their behaviours to improve animal welfare, it is essential to first understand the animal owning community’s existing knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours. Community needs assessments give the facilitator and the community a snapshot of the livelihoods, resources, service provision, daily activities of humans and animals, husbandry techniques, diseases, and their treatment. Needs assessments help identify communities’ belief systems about what is good animal welfare, gaps in current provision, highlight what needs to be accomplished, support decision making and help tailor goals and objectives specifically for the community.
You will use the understanding you have already gleaned about the community, its beliefs, and attitudes towards animal welfare as a foundation for the steps that follow.
It is helpful to first understand the issues affecting communities which could potentially impact animal welfare, and the relative importance of these issues to animal owning communities. When viewed through a one welfare [69] perspective, this understanding, combined with understanding of animal welfare issues gained in later steps, can help identify potential areas of overlap between animal and human needs or issues, which if addressed, could potentially positively impact communities’ wellbeing and that of their animals. It will be easier to generate motivation to address issues important to communities, which if addressed, would benefit both community members and their animals. This is particularly the case in situations where there are competing or conflicting needs and feelings between animals and people. For example, when there are limited household resources to adequately meet both the needs of people and their animals, human needs are understandably more likely to be prioritized over those of their animals; or animals may be used to earn an income to meet human needs in ways which may not be best for the animal’s welfare.
Figure 36: Visualizing One Welfare - interconnected nature of human well-being, animal welfare, and the environment.
Analyse and identify issues within the community that might directly or indirectly influence animal welfare. Investigate these key areas with community members:
The lives of animals, including: - Daily activities of any animal/s including both at work and rest, and any seasonal variations, which can be supported by the Daily activity schedule - animals (T4b) and the Seasonal calendar (T6) tools, completed from the animal’s perspective. - Current husbandry and health practices: disease recognition and treatment, seasonal variations, and prevention, and cultural or traditional practices that could affect welfare. The Seasonal calendar (T6) and Mapping Animal Diseases (T1c) tools can assist with this process.
Animal-related service-providers and resources, using Mapping - Resources and Services (T1a) and Venn Diagram – resources and Services (T3a) can help this process: - Identify service providers that serve the animal owning community. - Identify animal related resources. - Understand the location of animal-related service providers including distance from the community, availability, affordability, quality, seasonal availability, and preferred providers.
1.2.2 Identify potential issues related to animal welfare, and animal-related services and resources, and related implications for communities
Help community members assess their situation and that of their animals to generate a sense of shared interest in improving animal welfare using Focus Group Discussion (FGD) and following the steps outlined below. To support informed analysis and discussion here, it can be helpful to socialize the concept of animal welfare as a first step, through general outreach or using the Animal welfare conversation tool (T32) as time and resources permit.
Identify which of these issues directly or indirectly affect their ability to care for their animal and meet its needs. Any animal welfare issues identified through the Mapping - animal welfare issues (T1b) or through observations may be useful to reflect on here.
Analyse these issues with discussions in member sub-groups such as animal owners, handlers, women, and children.
Present findings to the whole group for agreement on issues identified as important to the group. You may wish to use the Pairwise Ranking (T8) tool to support the group in coming to agreement on identified issues.
In a group, visit service providers and other stakeholders, visit sites, and investigate resources.
Discuss animal welfare issues with stakeholders either individually or in a workshop (using Focus group discussions (FGD) along with PLA tools such as Three Pile Sorting (T23) can be helpful). Follow-up with a group meeting to analyse gaps in service and resource provision and practices – how can they be improved?
Facilitate regular community group meetings until the analysis is completed. The number of visits, meetings and the tools required to identify and analyse all the issues are flexible – every community is different.
Pay attention to change talk in terms of how members of the community talk about any desires to change, ability to change, reasons to change, need to change and commitment to change. Refer to the facilitators resources 2. Essential Communication Skills for Promoting Behaviour Change, 3. Guidance on Listening for Change Talk to support your process during this step. In addition, take note of key findings and insights and any potential external barriers to communities’ improving animal welfare, consider using the 20. Project Action Tracker to support your documentation.
1.2.3. Identify shared interest for community and organization to work together on an animal welfare improvement project
Once you have built rapport with the animal owning community and understand the local context and their priority animal welfare needs and concerns, organize separate community meetings or focus group discussions with different groups within the animal owning community such as men, women, and other potentially vulnerable groups, including any existing social or interest groups previously identified as being interested in improving animal welfare during the rapport building step. During the meetings, share the identified community needs and issues related to improving animals’ welfare that were identified through the community discussions carried out in previous steps. This is an opportunity for you to learn about different groups’ interests and motivations in relation to improving their animals’ welfare, as well as gauge their general level of awareness of issues. This is also an opportunity for them to learn about your interest in collaborating with them to create community groups interested in improving animal welfare, and to introduce your ways of working [67]. Consider carrying out an Animal welfare transect walk (T22) with groups of community members at this stage to increase awareness of the welfare condition of animals in the community as needed to help generate motivation and interest in working with the project.
Facilitate the group/s to identify the key findings and concerns influencing animal welfare which they are interested in addressing, along with the specific individuals or groups interested in collaborating with the project and each other and note the best means for staying in contact with them.
In circumstances where improving the welfare of non-production working animals may be needed, but they are perceived as less valuable than production or income generating livestock whose needs are prioritized by communities, consider using the Increasing Perceived Importance of Animals (T27) tool. In such circumstances, this tool can be useful to improving communities’ awareness of the value of these working animals to the broader production system and the benefits they derive from it and help generate interest and motivation to address their welfare issues.
Tools and resources helpful to supporting this step include:
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
Three pile sorting, use cards to enable a member of an animal owning community to sort and discuss animal management and work practices according to whether they are seen as good, bad, or neutral for animal welfare.
Tool purpose:
Time needed:
• To explore participants’ understanding and perspectives on any animal welfare issue, care and management practices (including harmful practices) and to provide a starting point for problem analysis and action. • To analyse perceptions about animal diseases and their symptoms, causes and prevention.
1 hour 30 minutes
Materials needed:
Chart paper, note cards, markers or other locally available resources, and a set of cards showing animal welfare.
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Development Approach, Community Engagement Approach, Societal Outreach and Campaigns Approach
Stages of Change: Pre-contemplation Stage, contemplation
Project Support: Participatory Learning and Action Tools, Needs Assessment
Specific Topics: Animal Husbandry and Management, Animal Handling
Three pile sorting
Step 1
For this exercise you need to prepare beforehand.
Make a set of cards showing animal welfare or management practices which can be interpreted as good, bad, or in-between (neutral). These should be based on problems previously identified by the community during exercises such as ‘If I were an animal’ (T17), Animal body mapping (T20) or Animal welfare practice gap analysis (T21). Common negative practices which could be illustrated on the cards include beating animals, overloading, not offering water, incorrect feeding, and lack of care for wounds
Step 2
Organize participants into groups of no more than seven and ask each group to form a circle. Give a set of cards to each circle and ask for two or three volunteers to sit in the centre of the circle and sort the cards together. They should place each card in one of three piles: representing good welfare or management practices, bad welfare, or management practices, and in-between or neutral practices (or practices where there is uncertainty or disagreement).
Step 3
After the cards have been sorted, ask the volunteers to arrange them so that each card is visible to the whole group (see figure T23 below- Place holder). Encourage debate between participants to challenge their choices and analyse all aspects of their decision. Enable participants to understand why a particular practice may be better or worse for animal welfare.
Step 4
Ask the group to identify which of the animal welfare issues or management practices are occurring in their own village, especially the ones they have identified as bad. This discussion can be used to enable participants to identify priority welfare problems and to propose potential solutions or action to be taken.
Step 5
Document the discussions and share back with the community.
Record the community’s analysis and responses in your project action tracker and follow up with the community later if/when you start action planning together.
Figure T23 a sample pile sorting process
Facilitation Notes
It is important that you enable the group to bring their own perceptions and use their local terms for management practices, diseases, pain, and animal suffering.
The game can also be played using photographs representing the existing situations in the village. This needs advance preparation.
Notice and document why certain practices are said to be harmful or are perceived as positive or neutral while they affect animal welfare. It is important to also note their misconceptions about the practices, diseases, etc. and their stages of change (pre-contemplation – being unaware or contemplation stages – struggling with their decisional balance to determine them as good, bad or neutral) with regard to the different care and management and animal diseases.
Another variation is to ask participants to sort cards according to different types of animal welfare issue they have experienced, such as i) issues directly related to animals ii) issues related to service providers and other stakeholders and iii) issues related to animal owners, users, and carers.
This resource includes three example trackers you may wish to use to support your work. These are designed for community engagement staff, as a way to record key discussions from community visits, track progress, and capture outcomes. Using trackers will help you to:
Be accountable to the communities you work with
Provide the support requested by communities during your visits
Keep track of actions and ensure that they are completed on time
Evidence progress and requests for further support from your organisation or potential partner organisations
Report to donors more easily
Each of these trackers are suggestions only, and should be adapted and used as is appropriate for your team and context. It may not be appropriate or required to use some of these trackers for all projects so you can pick and choose as is helpful for your work.
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Development Approach, Community Engagement Approach, Societal Outreach and Campaigns Approach
Project Support: Facilitator Resources, Documentation and Reporting
1. Team Action Tracker
The Team Action Tracker keeps a record of actions to be taken by staff/partner staff teams to support identified animal welfare issues. The tracker is informed by PLA activities and directly supports the community action plan.
The tracker should be populated and updated by community engagement staff. It helps to track which animal welfare issues were identified, using which PLA tools, and captures the follow up actions to be taken by the team to both support the community action plan.
Invite a vet to sensitize on colic (1st priority) during next community meeting.
2. Project/Regional Action Tracker
The Project/Regional Action Tracker is designed to collate information from across communities to inform project/regional planning. Information included within the tracker is populated with information taken from PLA activities and community action plans from within the project/regional operational area. The Project/Regional Action Tracker can support with identifying the scale of different issues, tracking different actions/strategies planned, and recording ideas for actions to take/improvement which should be further explored. The goal is to help teams keep track of outcomes of activities with communities for greater strategic coordination and support for planning and development of projects. The utility of this resource will depend on the scale of the project/programme and may not be needed in all project contexts.
Animal Welfare Issue
Regions & communities where issues was identified as priority
Key actions / strategies to take
Person responsible
Timeline / Deadline
Additional actions / Ideas for improvement
Status / Update
Feeding
Halaba: 17 communities
Regional training on proper feeding practices scheduled for 30th May 2019
Drought (water shortage)
Dodola: 14 communities
· Speaking to WaterAid about opportunities to link communities with water savings programmes
3. Staff Action Tracker
The Staff Action Tracker is designed to support community engagement staff to document their community visits, activities, and action points for follow up.
Staff Name: Community/site:
Visit/ Meeting Date
Number of participants and equines targeted
Community engagement activities Key topics/issues discussed (incl. follow up on progress of action points/results identified in previous meeting/visit)
Identified action points and results expected to be achieved by community Persons responsible + expected achievement date
Identified actions for staff Person responsible + expected achievement date
Action point: 1. Sensitization on hoof care & possible handling for women 2. Follow up on how sharing of stable cleaning activities are going Staff responsible: Expected achievement date:
07/06/2019
# Participants: 10
# Equines:
T15 Cost-benefit analysis – not over-loading · Implementation costs · Cost on animal · Cost on HH if adopted or not · Benefits of mixed feed
Action point/result expected: 1. Reduce from 10 quantal/3 trips to 8 quantal/4 trips 2. Buy wheat bran in bulk to reduce cost (10 birr to 8.6 birr / kg) 3. Focus on balance loading Person responsible: Fanos & Azamach Expected achievement date: Meet to discuss in one week
Action point: 1. Check with animal welfare team that reduction in amount over more trips is good welfare 2. Make plan to collect money for bulk purchase of feed 3. Support selection of money managers 4. Provide support/training on cart balancing & feed mixing 5. Sensitizing shop keeper about over-loading 6. Identify feed sellers who are willing to sell in bulk for reduced cost 7. Revisit for support planning in 15 days Staff responsible: Expected achievement date:
07/06/2019
# Participants:
# Equines:
T14 Group inter-loaning
Action point/result expected: 1. Carry out activity in smaller groups
Action point: 1. Evaluate seed money strategy – focus seed money on direct equine-benefited activities
07/06/2019
# Participants: 10
# Equines?
T15 Cost-benefit analysis – not over-loading: · Implementation costs · Cost on animal · Cost on HH if adopted or not · Benefits of mixed feed
Action point/result expected: 4. Reduce from 10 quantal/3 trips to 8 quantal/4 trips 5. Buy wheat bran in bulk to reduce cost (10 birr to 8.6 birr / kg) 6. Focus on balance loading
Person responsible: Fanos & Azamach
Expected achievement date: Meet to discuss in one week
Action point: 1. Check with animal welfare technical support staff to evaluate potential welfare implications of community’s proposed action. 2. Revisit for support planning in 15 days
Staff responsible: TBD, consult with AHM and UK AW team
Working animals’ (e.g., donkeys, horses, oxen etc.) welfare is often overlooked in comparison to other livestock/production animals who have a more direct and understood role in supporting communities’ livelihoods. This tool is specifically designed to be used to aid communities in realizing the critical role and importance of these often-overlooked working animals to improve their motivation to similarly meet these animals’ welfare needs.
Tool purpose:
Time needed:
To increase community members' motivation for better meeting the welfare needs of working animals by understanding their valuable contributions to their lives and/or livelihoods.
2-3 hours
Materials needed:
chart paper, index cards or sticky notes, pens/markers, chalk and/or locally available materials.
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Development Approach, Community Engagement Approach
Behavioural Drivers (COM-B): Motivation
Stages of Change: Contemplation Stage
Project Support: Participatory Learning and Action Tools
Specific Topics: Animal Welfare, Feelings and Needs; Compassion/Empathy, Community Change Agents
Increasing perceived importance of animals
Step 1
Take the community through the process of identifying the general resources and services important to meeting their households’ needs and supporting their livelihoods which their animals either directly or indirectly contribute to obtaining (e.g., water, fertilizer, education, transport, health care, animal health services, agricultural products, income, food, feed for animals etc.). Write or draw these ideas on cards or paper until all are listed for all to see. The resources and services listed need not be limited to animal-related resources or services.
Step 2
Once these important resources and services are identified, ask participants to identify the animals which directly or indirectly contribute to obtaining them e.g., livestock/production animals, working animals etc.). Write or draw pictures of each animal on a card and place them on the ground. Then write the list of the resources or services they support /contribute to the family beside each of the animals.
Step 3
Then ask participants to identify which of the roles listed against each animal are important to them. They can rank them in order of priority. Each listed role should be paired with a picture of the animal that support that role in the household. To aid the participants in identifying these roles, ask participants to think about each animal’s relationship/contribution to all resources identified including(ability to support different resources identified).
Have the community write or draw the roles of each animal on cards or list them on a large piece of paper under each animal identified.
Step 4
Based on the roles and their importance, then ask participants to reflect on which animals they feel are most important/which they cannot live without and why based on the identified roles for each animal. Rank each animal in order of the agreed upon importance based on their roles.
Step 5
Next, support community participants to assess the value & contribution of each animal to their household through a cost & benefit analysis. Use the following discussion points to help facilitate this discussion:
• How much income do they get from their animals? • What are some of the uses of each of the animals? • What are the contributions of each animal in meeting household needs? time savings, social status, labour burden savings? • Prioritize how they spend income and savings from each animal based on the needs of the various household (Distribution of income expenditure at home) • Then consider how much is spent to meet each animal’s welfare needs and compare this to each animal’s contribution to the household income. • Then rank the animals in order of contribution to the household versus what is spent on the animal.
The process helps community members appreciate the value and importance of their working animals in relation to their contributions to meeting the household’s needs. Note which members of the community respond to the various contributions of working animals and lead the discussion for all views and lived experiences are taken, recognized and valued.
Step 6
Summarize the results of the activity and ask community members to reflect on their learnings and motivations for acting to better meet the welfare needs of their working animals. Agree on any actions and activities that that individual and/or the group identified they will take to improve the welfare of their working animals to add to the community action plan and agree on a date to repeat the exercise to assess changes in their perceived importance of their working animals and to monitor any actions taken.
Facilitation Notes
It is helpful to understand how to use processes which support communities in ranking or prioritising, as utilising a ranking process may be helpful to employ if communities’ members struggle to identify priorities through discussion alone.
It is good to note that the discussion/reflection doesn’t lead to the utilitarian assumption that undermines animal welfare.
