The World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) defines animal welfare as animals having the opportunity to be healthy, comfortable, well nourished, safe, able to express innate behaviour and the absence of suffering. Animal welfare is not just the absence of suffering or avoidance of negative experiences but is also the promotion of positive experiences. It is both the physical and emotional state of an animal.
Understanding animal welfare from an animal’s perspective is key as THEY are the ones who decide if an experience is positive or negative to them. It is therefore important to understand that what animals need to experience good welfare will often vary from animal to animal, as well as depend on the context in which the animal lives (e.g. its environment, human attitudes and practices, and available resources). In addition, understanding and improving animal welfare can confer important benefits to both animals and people.
Animal welfare is assessed by measuring and evaluating how well an animal’s needs are being met in accordance with the animal’s natural behaviour. This will incorporate assessment of the environment in which the animal lives, whether the animal’s social needs are being met (e.g. being around, or away from other animals of the same kind), how well-nourished the animal is with appropriate nutrition, and the animal’s level of health, both physical and psychological. An animal’s welfare can also vary by factors such as seasonality, work type, animal age, gender, and/or owners’ practices, which is why making welfare assessment a regular, ongoing practice can be beneficial.
1.2 How is Animal Welfare Assessed?
There are many different models, or frameworks, for assessing or defining animal welfare, the most notable of which include the Five Freedoms and the Five Domains which are discussed in sections which follow.
Despite the existence of different assessment frameworks, it is helpful to consider concept of the “Balance of Life Experiences” when seeking to understand and promote animal welfare. In this concept, the ‘ideal’ of a ‘good life’ is something that all owners should strive to achieve by finding small incremental ways to improve an animal’s life experiences and bring their welfare to an acceptable, realistic standard that contributes to them having a life worth living. Brooke’s animal welfare policy provides an example of the practical application of the concept of promoting ‘a good life’ for animals.
Figure 1: Balance of Life Experiences (adapted from [2])
The Five Freedoms
The earliest, and most known, animal welfare guidance is the Five Freedoms. The five freedoms are widely known and used internationally across different species to outline what animals need and want [3]. The five freedoms have given focus to the importance of “understanding, identifying and minimising negative welfare states” [4].
The five freedoms include:
1. Freedom from thirst, hunger & malnutrition
Figure 2: The provision of readily accessible fresh water and nutritious feed are examples which support animals in experiencing freedom from hunger and thirst.
2. Freedom from discomfort & exposure
Figure 3: Example of an appropriate environment where shelter and a comfortable resting is provided to support animals in experiencing freedom from discomfort and exposure.
3. Freedom from pain, injury & disease
Figure 4: Prevention and early diagnosis and treatment are examples which can support animals in experiencing freedom from pain, injury, or disease.
4. Freedom from fear & distress
Figure 5: Ensuring conditions and treatment which avoid mental suffering support animals in experiencing freedom from fear and distress.
5. Freedom to express normal behaviour
Figure 6: Providing animals with sufficient space, proper facilities and company of the animal's own kind supports their ability to freely express normal behaviour.
However, as the five freedoms focus is on relieving or avoiding suffering, there is limited focus on the promotion of positive states. Evidence to prove an animal’s ability to experience emotions, such as pain, fear, and stress along with joy, affection, and happiness, has led to welfare assessment being developed to allow for this and to encourage the promotion of positive experiences rather than just alleviating negative.
The Five Domains
The five domains framework for welfare assessment evolved from earlier frameworks to focus on the promotion of positive states of welfare, while continuing to minimise negative ones [2]. The first three domains of nutrition, environment and health focus on the physical condition or state, while the fourth domain of behaviour focuses on the surroundings that can promote or limit the expression of natural behaviour (e.g. the environment, humans, or other animals). These four domains feed into the fifth, the ‘Mental States’ domain, which is the emotions and moods an animal feels, which in turn determines their welfare status. Mental state can be positive or negative, passive, or active.
1. Nutrition
The process of providing or obtaining the food necessary for health & growth.
If feeding higher quality or increased quantity of feeds is not possible, other ways of making improvements in this domain could be feeding animals away from one another to avoid resource guarding or bullying or ensuring that small amounts of forage are always available rather than a large amount fed infrequently.
Figure 7: Providing fresh fodder to working donkeys in small amounts throughout the day to ensure they remain healthy and have sufficient energy as they work.
2. Environment
The surroundings or conditions in which an animal lives or operates can either create conditions of comfort or discomfort.
Promoting comfortable living and working environments for animals can support their welfare, for example by clearing rubbish or hazardous items from the environment, ensuring that social species have the option to be around others of their species, and that all animals are given an opportunity to have free unrestricted movement for at least part of the day and are not tied up.
Figure 8: Example of donkeys in and environment littered with rubbish which can be hazardous to their health when consumed.
3. Health
A state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity (as defined by the World Health Organisation).
Ensuring that steps are taken to PREVENT health conditions like disease, wounds and lesions, lameness, foot related health issues, eye infections, etc. This can be done by ensuring recommended vaccine schedules are followed, that equipment (e.g. tack, harnesses, collar) is correctly fitted and not rubbing in a particular area, by wiping eyes clean from dust and debris, treating wounds with appropriate products, balancing loads, and not working animals when they are too young, and seeking veterinary advice and help as soon as possible when needed.
Figure 9: Regular cleaning and trimming of hooves is a preventative measure to mitigate lameness in horses.
4. Behaviour
The way in which an animal behaves in response to a particular situation or stimulus, whereby the animal can express its natural behaviours, including satisfying and engaging environment-focused and inter-animalactivities.
This also includes handling, which describes how a human works with, responds to or interacts with an animal in its surroundings.
Figure 10: Example of positive human-animal interaction because of compassionate handling.
For most animals, handling is essential for their management and healthcare. However, for working animals, handling is prevalent each day of their lives. These animals work and live alongside people, meaning that handling is one of the most frequent events they experience. If handling is inhumane then it is relentless and enduring. However, if handling is compassionate, it can be an enjoyable experience for them. Handling can be a way to increase the number of positive experiences that an animal has across its lifetime. [5]
Animals remember whether an interaction with a human has been positive or negative and this will affect the way they behave, with negative human-animal interactions more likely to result in fear behaviour. Handling should correspond with LIMA principles (Least Invasive Minimally Aversive) [6]. By treating your animal compassionately, ensuring that handling is done in a calm, patient, kind way, this will result in a happier animal where the behavioural domain is met. It is equally important to allow an animal with opportunities to exhibit normal behaviour, such as social interactions with its own species, foraging and grazing behaviour and locomotion.
5. Mental State
Positive and negative experiences within the other four domains influence whether an animal’s mental state is positive or negative.
For example, if an animal is hungry or thirsty, they will experience negative emotions, while if an animal is being handled calmly and shown compassion, they will likely experience positive emotions.
While animals may display quick, emotional responses to an immediate stimulus, they also experience affective states which are longer lasting mood states (such as anxiety or depression) because of an accumulation of experiences. Thus, to improve animal welfare it is important to seek to understand and assess both their positive AND negative experiences within each domain and consider how an animal’s experiences within each of the four domains may be contributing to its mental state AND influencing its overall welfare.
Figure 11: Example of an animal experiencing a negative mental state.
The "Five Domains" model for assessing animal welfare
Figure 12: The "Five Domains" model for assessing animal welfare [2]
Examples of positive & negative experiences within the Five Domains framework
Figure 13: Examples of positive and negative experiences within the Five Domains framework [7]
Comparing the Five Freedoms and Five Domains of Animal Welfare Frameworks
The five freedoms aims to ensure that the animal is completely free of all the specific negative areas, and this can be seen as unrealistic or difficult to achieve, especially with working animals or in Low- or Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). Whereas the five domains considers the fulfilment of more domains as more important for the animal than improvement in a few separate indicators. The other key difference between the two frameworks for assessing welfare, is that the five freedoms focuses on avoidance of negative suffering, and views welfare as a potentially negative concept, whereas the five domains focuses on promoting positive welfare and views welfare as encapsulating the experiences, positive and negative, that animals have over their lifetime.
With the five domains, the crucial element is that each domain is addressed in some way. Gradual improvements in all five domains are more important than a big, or many, improvements in one domain, whilst other domains go unmet. For owners struggling to determine how they can meet each domain, some real-life examples are given below. Creating opportunities to meet elements within each of the five domains should be prioritized by communities with animals.
“The overall objective is to provide opportunities for animals to ‘thrive’ not simply ‘survive’…” [4]
1.3 Animals Feelings and Needs
Not only do animals have senses such as sight, hearing, etc. but they can also experience emotions associated with those senses, such as taking pleasure in eating tasty food, comfort, and security by socializing with others of their species etc., which is why animals are recognized as sentient beings. Animal sentience is defined as recognizing animals as sentient beings that can be aware of their own feelings and emotions. This includes both having the ability to have both negative feelings like pain, frustration, and fear as well as positive feelings like comfort, enjoyment, and contentment.
One of the best ways to understand what animals need is to observe them.
PRACTICE ACTIVITY
Observe Which Animal Welfare Needs are Being Met/Unmet
Watch the example videos provided below, or alternatively observe animals in their local context with community members for five to ten minutes.
Consider the five domains framework for assessing animal welfare, and make a list of:
1) the things the animals need which they are getting from their environment, resources and/or people around them, and 2) the things the animals need which they are not getting from their environment, resources and/or people around them.
Working Donkeys in Coal-mine, Pakistan
Working Donkey in Brick Kiln, Pakistan
People and animals are similar in their needs and in their basic feelings or emotions. They are likely to feel quite like you about things which affect their needs and their daily life. Think about what you need to have to have a good life and be happy in terms of your environment, health, nutrition, and behaviour? What do you need to experience and be provided with?
To help you see the world from an animal's perspective, imagine a 'being of unknown origin' appears in your community one day that you don't know anything about.
What does this 'being' need, to have good life?
Use the questions below to help you determine what this 'being' may need to meet its welfare needs and if it has a good life and is happy.
NUTRITION
What does this 'being' need to ensure their nutritional needs are met?
Water and nutritious food - what kind of food/water and how much do they need?
How often do they need to eat (once a day, constantly throughout the day)?
How do they like to eat/be fed (e.g. on the ground, up high, alone, in the company of friends)?
ENVIRONMENT
What does this 'being' need from their enviroment?
What things might they need to help them feel safe and comfortable?
What do they need to rest safely and comfortably overnight (should this be dark, light, cold, hot, what kind of substrate)?
Do they require heat/sun, cooler temperatures, or wet/moist environments?
Can they handle exposure from excessive sun/heat/moisture?
MENTAL
What signs might you look for
to know if they are happy?
HEALTH
What does this 'being' need to ensure their health needs are met? from their environment?
To keep then well and not get sick?
To ensure they can move comfortable and not be in pain?
What provisions might they need to address or prevent injury in this new landscape (e.g. preventative care measures, foot care,)?
What are their options for receiving prompt treatment should ailments arise?
BEHAVIOUR
What does this 'being' need to ensure their behavioural needs are met?
Are they being handled compassionately and have positive interactions with humans (e.g., are they naturally confident or wary towards humans)?
Do they have sufficient free time to rest? (e.g. breaks or down time from activities or interactions)
Can they express their natural behaviours (e.g. foraging, playing, socializing with others)
Do they have opportunities to make choices (e.g. in how they spend their time, who they spend their time with, where they go)?
Promoting understanding of animals’ needs, feelings, and lived experiences from the perspective of animals can be helpful to promoting empathy and compassion for animals, and related positive animal-human interactions. Similarly, understanding the importance of animals to people, and the nature of the human-animal relationship will help you understand how you may be able to communicate and motivate people to improve their animals’ welfare by framing the benefits of change in terms of what they most value about their animals.
Animals and humans have a long-intertwined histories. The “domestication and socialization of animals” is described as “an interactive process of cooperation and coevolution based on a shared need for shelter, food and protection [8]. This interdependent relationship is sometimes described as human-animal interaction or human-animal bond depending on the species of the animal and the key role/function they play in people’s lives e.g. supporting livelihoods, companion or service animal, farm animal, etc.
Just like humans, animals are sentient beings with feelings and welfare needs that need to be met. The nature of the interdependent relationship and associated human-animal bond shapes and determines how humans treat their animals and how animals experience their surroundings. Thus, animals’ welfare depends on their owners, carers, and users and the animal-human bond and interactions between them, and their compassionate handling, management, and use. The stronger the animal-human bond, the more animal owners or carers are likely to invest in positive animal welfare practices, for example when animals are considered family members [9].
Exploring the following key points can support people in understanding the importance of investing in their animals’ welfare and help increase their motivation to take action to improve it:
The role animals play in people’s lives and associated benefits people experience because of their animals, and how adopting improved animal husbandry and management practices can create mutual benefits for both humans and animals.
People’s beliefs and understanding about their animals’ as sentient beings, including their feelings and needs.
Understanding animal welfare in terms of the five animal welfare domains.
How people’s attitude and behaviours influences their animals’ welfare including their handling and husbandry practices.
The following sections focus on understanding animal welfare in terms of the nature of the human-animal relationship vis-à-vis the roles that humans and animals’ play in each other’s lives.
1.1 Understanding the Importance of Animals to People
People derive benefits from their animals depending on the role that animals play in their lives, whether it be by making peoples’ lives easier by relieving their physical labour burdens, supporting livelihoods, or through contributing to people’s emotional wellbeing as companions.
It is therefore our responsibility to ensure animals live a life worth living rather than just survive.
Understanding how individuals, households, and communities’ benefit from animals is important to effectively framing communications to help motivate people to take action to improve the welfare of their animals.
The following section outlines animals’ potential benefits to people in terms of livelihood assets and well-being which you may identify through discussion and observations with communities you work with.
Figure 15: (from left to right) Illustrating how ensuring working and production animals’ welfare helps support people in meeting their livelihood needs, including firewood collection, transport of goods for people and animals, and income generation helpful to paying school fees.
Financial Capital: Animals may improve people’s opportunities for income generation, wealth accumulation, and related improvements in material living standards. Animals engage in many types of income generating activities which support people’s livelihoods and working animals may contribute to savings from hiring labour or transport. Animals may also be purchased as an investment, used to facilitate access to credit as a guarantee against a loan, and/or serve as a safety net for unexpected expenses.
Social Capital: Animals contribute to strengthening social networks and building trust and reciprocity. For example, people may lend their animals to others in need (e.g. free transport services, helping plough fields, supporting ceremonial activities), which may later see a return of support to animals’ owners in their times of need. This mutual support can contribute to enhanced resilience through strengthened social networks, and enhanced trust and reciprocity. Working animals can help women or other disadvantaged groups to carry out social responsibilities, which may increase their level of respect and status within their community. Alternatively, animal ownership, care or use can be linked to social stigmas (e.g. low socio-economic status, uncleanliness). Such stigmas can negatively affect people’s attitudes and beliefs about themselves and their animals, which can further affect how they treat their animals. It is therefore important to understand the nature of people’s relationship with their animals and related attitudes and beliefs which may be motivating or hindering them from taking action to improve the welfare of their animals.
Human Capital: animals support people’s health, attainment of skills and knowledge, and ability to work. For example, animals can act as transport providing access to healthcare services schools, and markets. They can also provide sources of nutrition’s either directly through meat and dairy products, or through farming inputs, which can promote good health. In this way, animals can support people’s attainment of knowledge and skills, as well as free up time and energy by reducing physical work burden which in turn may increase the availability of time and labour for investing in other pursuits.
Physical Capital: working animals can be a vital transport asset for goods and people, as well as provide essential sources of draught power which support agricultural production and other industries value chains’ (construction, infrastructure), which can be critical to supporting people’s livelihoods.
Natural Capital: animals themselves are natural resources natural resources from which further resources and services can be developed to support people’s livelihoods. Working animals can be also an important asset for enhancing access to natural resources such as fuel and firewood, food, feed, and water, as well through supporting agricultural inputs and outputs. Animal owners and users may also benefit from access to communal lands, water, and forest resources, or alternatively experience increased conflict over resources as a result their animal keeping.
Reducing Vulnerability: working animals and livestock can be valuable assets which contribute to communities’ resilience to natural shocks and disasters. For example, donkeys help transport water long distances to drought affected areas, help families move when natural disasters strike, and support pastoralist communities during migration.
Figure 16: Donkey’s supporting migration of Pastoralist communities in Turkana
Psychological, emotional, and spiritual well-being: animals can contribute for humans “well-being, connectedness, and resilience”, particularly in the case of domestic pets, companion animals, and service animals, by providing pleasure, relaxation, affection, loyalty, joy, and comfort [8]. In addition, animals can play a role in providing people with a sense of security through their contributions to income and food production, thereby reducing people’s exposure to unexpected shocks, and their ability to withstand shocks they may encounter. Leisure activities involving animals can also contribute to people’s sense of joy, freedom, and/or personal achievement (e.g. horseback riding, animal agility or show competitions).
Cultural and Spiritual Significance: Animals have had important cultural and spiritual significance attached to them throughout human history and are often well treated when they hold significance in cultural and religious teachings or practices [8]. Perceived cultural benefits may be derived when animals are used during cultural ceremonies like celebrations, memorials, and/or important sporting events. People may also derive cultural benefits if there is a significant cultural or group identity attached to being an animal owning community, for example cattle pastoralists’ sense of identity can be strongly linked with their keeping of animals or size of herd. In addition, understanding how animal species are depicted and characterized within cultural stories, literature, and within day-to-day sayings, as well people’s cultural values and beliefs about their animals and their identity, can provide useful insights into what drives people’s behaviours, and how to effectively communicate to motivate the adoption of improved animal welfare practices.
Figure 17: Horses supporting cultural and social activities in Ethiopia.
Horses supporting cultural and social activities in India.
Case Study Improving Animal Welfare Benefits People
In the Helwan region near Cairo, a huge collection of brick kilns produces 200 million red bricks every month in 2010, relying on over 1500 donkeys and 324 mules to pull brick carts.
Brick kiln donkeys have many welfare problems, including dehydration, poor body condition, foot problems and wounds from saddles and from beating. Due to the harsh conditions in which they live and work, their mortality rate is high, and many donkeys die young.
The Brooke Hospital for Animals supported an equine welfare improvement project to address equid welfare issues in Brik Kilns and facilitated meetings and trainings with brick kiln and animal owners to build their capacity to provide for their working animals’ welfare. Monitoring results indicated the age of working animals in brick kilns was increasing over the course of the project. Factory owners recognized that the turnover of working animals had sharply decreased, and that workers’ animals seemed to be living longer and able to be more productive and generate more income. A factory owner cited this being the result of improved donkey feeding practices during the peak working season. Another brick kiln worker and owner of several donkeys explained that water was a problem in the peak season and causing his donkeys to suffer. His solution to this issue was moving the water source inside the stable to give the animals more opportunities to drink. He noted that his animals’ health seemed to improve and that they felt so happy.
Over the years these very small adjustments have made a real difference to the welfare of the donkeys, reducing mortality rates, and prolonging their lives at the brick kilns.
Source: Mohamed Hammad, Ahmed El Sharkawy and Amro Hassan, Brooke Egypt, January 2010
There are many ways in which animals create value in our lives; however, animals’ provision of benefits to people, or lack thereof, is not the sole justification for people to address animal welfare issues. Rather understanding these benefits when they exist, along with people’s attitudes and beliefs about their animals and their treatment, can inform how best to engage people to motivate them to improve their animals’ welfare. Animals’ intrinsic value as sentient beings is sufficient reason for people to promote positive animal welfare states; however, may still require changes in social norms and values to support increased compassion for animals.
1.2 How Animal's Welfare Depends on People
The welfare of animals varies depending on a complex range of factors influencing their lives, many of which are dependent or determined by humans. Unlike wild animals, domesticated animals depend on humans for their welfare, and may not have the freedom to express their natural behaviour and depend on people to meet their needs. Working and production animals often have a very restricted and unnatural life, deprived of their freedom of movement and ability to express natural behaviours. Regardless of animal species, people who choose to keep animals are ultimately responsible for their animals’ life experiences, as these animals are dependent on people for meeting their needs.
The figure below illustrates the variety of determinants influencing animal welfare. The central, middle circle represents the animal factors which influence animal welfare, whereas the second, third and fourth layers are examples of the determinants of welfare which are dependent on humans, highlighting how much a domesticated animal’s welfare depends on people and is beyond the control of the animal them self. In the second layer, you can see direct influences on animals’ welfare related to their immediate living and/or working conditions, such as housing, nutrition, workload, handling, disease prevention and treatment, all of which are dictated by people. This could be considered in line with the five domains of welfare discussed in previous sections.
Figure 18: Determinants of Animals' Welfare (Adapted from [10])
The third layer shows the factors which influence the animal’s living and working conditions and therefore determines their welfare indirectly. These are similarly human determinants and may include the knowledge and capacity of the people who interact with the animal, the services available (including animal health services), the resources available in the locality and, among those, the specific resources that owners choose to provide, depending on what they can afford. This layer also contains the belief systems and traditions of the people dealing with the animal, the influence of their peers and social network, their social status, and their income level.
The outer layer represents more general socio-economic and environmental factors which influence the third layer. These may include social structures, income opportunities or wages, droughts and floods, mobility patterns, urbanisation, fuel prices and changes in policies. Together the third and fourth level can be considered determinants of human behaviour related to people’s capability, opportunity, and motivation for ensuring their animals’ animal welfare. Within this diagram, the human factors, or determinants of animal welfare influence each other within each layer and between one layer and the next. To be successful in sustainably improving welfare, several determinants will likely need to be addressed at the same time amongst the people regularly interacting with the animal and the systems in which animals and people live and/or work. Some factors influencing animal welfare are within the owner’s control, such as whether they are beaten, or what time of day they are fed. However, many factors cannot be influenced by individual animal owners because they are part of a wider living and working system, or socio-economic system. Thus, for people to be able to meet the needs of their animals and improve their welfare, a holistic and systems-based approach is recommended to understand and address the variety of factors influencing the behaviours of animal owning communities.
It is also important to note that animals’ welfare needs are not static. Just as the human circumstance affects peoples’ needs and related ability to meet them, animals’ needs and feelings may similarly change with the changing circumstances of their owners, and in response to changing circumstances they experience over the course of each day, season, or lifetime. The points below highlight general circumstances in which an animal’s needs may change, and which may require the people they depend on to adapt their husbandry and management practices to enable them to continue to thrive and experience positive welfare states.
Changes in the local context/environment: Animals’ welfare needs change depending on the circumstances and context as well. Sometimes when the community environmental context or circumstances change (e.g. in times of crisis or emergency), animals’ roles can change which can further result in changes in animals’ needs and related welfare (e.g. equids during humanitarian crisis, or search and rescue dogs). Changes in animals’ roles can require changes in care and management practices to meet the resultant changing needs of animals.
Animals’ welfare needs change depending on their age during their lifetime: Just like people, animals experience mental and physical changes and challenges during their lifetime. The needs and feelings of animals are likely to change as they reach middle and older age. There are many reasons for this, such as changes in nutritional needs, working ability and the amount of rest or care needed by the animal and provided by their owner.
Animals’ welfare needs change when seasons change: Within a single year, people and their working animals will experience many changes and challenges according to the climate, workload, food availability, income and other livelihood and environmental factors. In different countries and regions there will be different seasons or times of change within a livelihood system in one year and these will affect the welfare of animals.
Animals’ welfare needs change during a single day: Within a single day, working animals will experience changes and challenges to their welfare. These will be influenced by their living, working and resting conditions and their health status. They will also depend on the opportunities to experience positive feelings that are provided by their environment and the people and other animals around them.
As circumstances affecting animals’ needs change, people’s animal husbandry and management practices may need to adjust to provide for their animals’ welfare and ensure their animals continue to experience positive welfare states to the extent feasible.
The five domains framework is helpful for understanding how animals’ positive life experiences can be improved even within the contextual constraints people may face which are out of their control, since it doesn’t seek to ensure the animal is free from all issues which may not be possible.
Small changes can make a big difference to an animal’s overall welfare, with each little bit is contributing to the mental state and small gains in the animals’ overall welfare.
Look after your animals and they will look after you.
Figure 19: Woman in India checking and cleaning her working horse’s hooves to promote hoof health and prevent lameness.
1.3 Linking Human Behaviours to Positive Animal Welfare States
People have control over the lives of animals, and determine when their animals eat, drink, sleep, what they can do, where they can go, and what other animals they can meet. People are responsible for their animals’ well-being because they choose to keep animals and derive benefits from them. It is therefore important to understand who is responsible for the animals’ welfare state, and what behaviour should be targeted to improve it, as well as whether they have adequate knowledge and skills and access to sufficient resources and services to change. However, it is also essential to see things from the animal’s point of view, so not only are we asking, ‘Is the owner providing inputs or resources,’ but also: ‘Is the animal really getting what they need?’
Think about the animals in the communities where you will work, and how they spend their day. What activities comprise their day, how much time are they being active or resting? Describe who the animals depend upon to stay in a good, healthy state? Who feeds them and gives them water? Who cleans the area where they are kept? What care do people who own the animals believe they need, and who is responsible for providing that care?
It is not usually practical or realistic to give an animal absolutely everything they need to keep them feeling good all the time, every day, every season, throughout their life. However, the more animal needs that can be met, and the better their feelings are understood, the better their welfare can be. Incremental improvements in management practices and access to resources and service and decreases in poor husbandry and management practices and use of poor-quality resources and services can make a difference to animal welfare. Some changes will make an immediate, short-term difference, while others will make a sustainable, long-term difference. All of them are valuable and small steps are better than no action at all.
As animals are fully contributing members of our communities that are sentient and can feel pain, fear, and stress as well as a wide range of positive emotions, an animal can have both good and bad experiences throughout their life. Animal owning communities can therefore proactively promote good overall welfare by preventing negative experiences and promoting positive experiences. Considering and providing for the animal’s needs and feelings as much as possible, using the five domains for reference, is also important to preventing welfare problems from developing. Preventing welfare problems before they happen tends to be easier than successfully treating them when they arise and is in the best interest of animals and communities who own them. “Without good care, animals can become sick, weak, unhappy, and unproductive. For example, a working animal in a poor welfare state cannot thrive and provide a family with income in the way that a fit and healthy animal does. In contrast, if welfare problems are prevented and the needs of animals are met, animals are more likely to be in good physical condition and have fewer episodes of disease or injury and are more likely to experience greater positive emotions and less negative emotional experiences.
While understanding what animals need is a useful first step when working with animal owning communities, this understanding needs to be linked to what communities can do to meet those needs to promote behavioural change for animal welfare improvement. To do this, you can use the five domains framework to craft a similar framework linking the human behaviours communities can undertake to promote positive welfare states. A general non-species-specific example is provided in the figure below.
Figure 20: Examples of human behaviour supporting the five domains
Mapping human behaviours within the five domains is recommended when working with communities as it helps to reframe the welfare issues into actionable human behaviours that promote positive welfare states and supports animal owners to identify alternative actions for improving their animals’ quality of life, even when external constraints may impede their ability to address some welfare issues (e.g. insufficient financial resources of access to animal related services).
In addition, animals and people being dependent on one another for their well-being, their well-being is also dependent on the health of the environment, and the frameworks of One Health and One Welfare can help us to understand the interconnectedness between the realms of the health and welfare of animals, people, and the environment.
This section introduces these frameworks and their utility in understanding and addressing the “inextricable and mutually reinforcing connections between problems” amongst these three realms [11]. The two different yet complimentary concepts of One Health and One Welfare were developed to help different disciplines work together to advance solutions to common threats to the interconnected health and well-being of humans, animals and their various environments which are mutually beneficial and ensure that improvements in any one realm are not achieved at the expense of another.
Figure 21: Visualizing the concept of One Health [12]
WHAT IS ONE HEALTH?
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines One Health as an approach to designing and implementing programmes, polices and legislation and research in which multiple sectors (human health, animal health and the environment) communicate and work together to achieve better public health outcomes.
The aim of the One Health approach according to the One Health Global Network is “to improve health and wellbeing through the prevention of risks and the mitigation of effects of crises that originate at the interface between humans, animals, and their various environments [13].”
Originating to better tackle zoonotic diseases (diseases that transfer between animals and humans), One Health has since evolved its focus beyond communicable disease to include any issue that affect health outcomes (e.g. urbanization, climate change, land use, demographic changes). Taking a One Health approach will therefore seek to understand and consider the inextricable links between human, animal, and environmental health and to achieve sustainable change and optimal health in any of these areas [12].
One Health Case Study
Building veterinary paraprofessional competencies through Animal Health Mentoring Framework
Across Africa and Asia large proportion of primary animal healthcare is delivered by veterinary paraprofessionals (VPPs). However, VPPs receive varying level of training and their profession is unregulated. Their training can range from 2 weeks to 2 years and is often lecture-based (which does not teach practical skills).
As a result, we see Paravets with low confidence and competence. This leads to poor handling, low clinical skills, inappropriate treatment choice (the inappropriate use of antimicrobials), spread of disease and incorrect diagnosis. This in turn contributes to Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) and poses a risk to the health of humans and animals alike, as well as a threat to the environment (contamination of water or soil).
Brooke has developed the Animal Health Mentoring Framework (AHMF) whereby trained mentors (usually an experienced vet or Paravets) accompany VPPs while they are attending to real life cases, providing support, and coaching as the work is carried out. This allows VPPs to develop practical skills and allows for assessment on gaps and to identify priority areas for improvement.
Improvements in VPP training and regulation are critical to OH. Well trained paraprofessional improves food safety, help reduce AMR and prevent diseases transferring from animals to humans (zoonosis). It is important to note that the AHMF applies to all species of livestock, not just equines, and as such can be easily adopted by other organizations.
Since 2013, the AHMF has been successfully used to mentor over 4,000 animal health professionals in India, Pakistan, Kenya, Senegal, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and Nepal. As a result of the mentoring, 37% of practitioners moved from an unsatisfactory competency level to satisfactory within one year.
WHAT IS ONE WELFARE?
One Welfare is a complementary approach akin to One Health, with One Welfare similarly recognizing the interconnections between animal welfare, human wellbeing and the environment and seeks to promote multi (cross sectoral) collaborations to better optimize desired welfare/well-being benefits for animals, people, and the environment [12].
The difference in the two concepts is primarily related to their origins and fields of application, with historically One Health focused more on disease prevention and treatment within the human health sector. One welfare simply promotes a slightly broader, more all-encompassing understanding of welfare inclusive of the welfare of animals as well as people and the environment. However, as the World Health Organizations defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” One Health and One Welfare are in fact mutually inclusive given the inclusion of physical, mental, and social well-being in the definition of health. However, whereas One Health is a more established and evidenced approach in practice that is championed by leading international organizations, One Welfare is a newer concept whose practical applications for tackling the common threats to human, animal and environmental welfare are still being explored and evidenced.
3.2 Relevance of One Health and One Welfare to Working with Communities to Improve Animal Welfare
The advantage of using a One Health/One Welfare approach when working with communities to improve animal welfare, especially in communities where animal welfare may not be a priority issue considering human and environmental issues they may be facing, is that these approaches are more likely to result in solutions that create benefits that are of interest to all, which can generate greater buy-in and motivation to change amongst communities.
The OH/OW frameworks can help explore the inter-relationships between humans, animals, and the environment realms in the following three ways:
Understanding Causal Relationships between Realms: OH/OW frameworks can help to understand how the situation or issues affecting the health and well-being of any one realm may be causing the health and well-being issues in another realm (e.g. lack of regulation of glyphosate-based herbicide use in the agricultural sector negatively impacts the health of humans and animals) [14].
Understanding/Identifying Root Causes of Issues within and Between Realms: help to understand the relationships between human, animal and/or environmental health and wellbeing in terms of shared or interlinked root causes. This may be in terms of how root causes of issues impacting health and well-being within any one realm originate from one of the other realms, as well as how issues in human, animal and environmental health and wellbeing may share root causes e.g. lack of knowledge of antibiotics and understanding of antimicrobial resistance causes their misuse and overuse which make infections harder to treat and increases the spread of disease in humans and animals [15, 16].
Shared External Threats or Risks: they can help to understand potential threats or risks to health and welfare shared by humans, animals, and the environment e.g. climate change.
Prior to developing solutions to animal welfare issues, it is helpful to first consider potential linkages between the health and well-being of animals, people, and the environment in terms of the above, and seek multidisciplinary collaborations that can better inform this understanding and support implementation of solutions which can better optimize benefits for all whenever feasible.
One Welfare | Case Study 1 Brick Kilns
In South Asia building material for the growing megacities is produced in around 152,700 active brick kilns. These kilns employ over 16 million people and 500,000 animals, mainly horses, donkeys, and mules, and produce 86% of the world’s bricks.
Workers in the kilns must endure extreme heat, dusty and polluted air, tough terrains, long hours, and hard physical labour. Many of them are women and children. In the brick kilns we have surveyed, 60% of workers lived below the poverty line, 80% had no running water and 60% had no latrine facilities. Restricted access to healthcare results in high rates of self-medication or use of unqualified doctors. Mental health is affected with 80% workers in one kiln reporting lack of pride in their work and 60% feeling no control over their lives.
Equines carry heavy loads in extreme heat, with limited access to water, food, shade, and rest. Common health issues in animals working in the kilns are hoof problems (50%), wounds (30%), abnormal gait (52%) and fear of human interaction (30%). Brick kilns are a huge contributor to pollution across the continent. According to the World Bank, the brickmaking sector is responsible for up to 91% of total particulate matter emissions (solid airborne particles) in some South Asian cities.
It was with a One Health solution in mind that Brooke has formed a coalition of organisations dedicated to improving labour conditions, animal health and welfare, child labour, and quality of the natural environment in brick kilns across South Asia: the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the South Asia Initiative to End Violence Against Children (SAIEVAC), the Donkey Sanctuary, the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), World Wildlife Fund (WWF), ActionAid Nepal, International Union For Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Global Fairness Initiative.
One of the interventions led by a coalition partner is the ‘Green Bricks’ initiative, which is tackling harmful kiln emissions through the implementation of new ‘clean air’ technology. ICIMOD is working with the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) in South Asia to train brick entrepreneurs and raise awareness of new, increasingly cost effective and scalable, kiln technologies and improvements in the brick production process. One of these technologies, called zigzag, reduces coal consumption by 20% and produces up to 70% lower levels of pollution than the existing technology. Other interventions have included the introduction of human and animal first aid kits into kilns, health, and safety training, linking workers to social care and health care schemes.
One Welfare | Case Study 2 Equine welfare in the production of organic cocoa in Nicaragua
In the north side of Nicaragua, the grass-root organization ADDAC (Association for Diversification and Development of Agricultural Communities) leader in agro-ecological activities and located in Waslala, is implementing a local project to increase the access of 1,000 organic cocoa producers to fair trade markets.
This region is recognized since 1961 for its contribution of 50% of the national cocoa bean production, and almost 70% of organic cocoa production is concentrated in areas with deficient road access. The families that depend on this crop to meet their basic needs, traditionally rest on equines for key tasks of the stages of production, harvesting, primary transformation (fermented and dried) and commercialization of cocoa beans. Horses and mules participate in the preparation of the soil for sowing and fertilization, the transfer and transplantation of genetic varieties, irrigation, surveillance activities for the maintenance, health and rehabilitation of cocoa plantations, and forest regeneration. They also represent the unique means of transportation of the cocoa fruits to be transformed and placed for domestic consumption and export markets. Moreover, working equids provide raw material to produce organic fertilizer to contribute to good soil conditions for cocoa growth, and the use of animal traction, lessens the pressure on carbon emissions, which add to environmental sustainability.
Through the experience of ADDAC, in collaboration with Brooke, this organization was introduced for the first time to the Equine Welfare, and has reflected on the link between the three realms of welfare: from the perspective of cocoa producers´ wellbeing, by improving the welfare of their equids, they perceived benefits to household’s incomes since the transportation of the cocoa grains on time to crops collection centre, encourage engagement through negotiations among merchants, and families are able to cope their prioritized needs. Additionally, the dynamics of cocoa-producing families are influenced by their equines as they converge in negotiation or trade centres, fairs, and traditional events, where the bonds between people and community roots and attachment is strengthened.
These has also benefited equines since cocoa producer are more aware of equines needs and have adopted positive animal welfare practices such as: the use of proportionate loads, appropriate hooves’ care, better feeding, preventive veterinary care; the appropriate use of the equid´s services in the post-harvest activities, and the reduction of the loss of production caused by accidents suffered by working equids in poor condition. These practices have helped families to report savings of approximately $1,645 per household per year that can be invested in improvements of the quality of the cocoa production, equid welfare. In addition, cocoa qualifies for commercial certifications to acquire a better market price, which represents USD 0.45 more per sold kilogram.
In their accumulated experience, ADDAC express that they have reached a more comprehensive understanding of the agro-ecological approach under the One Welfare Umbrella, which extends beyond the use of agricultural technology for the restoration of the productive capacity of the soils, but refers to the demand of the farmer production model, involving aspects of community organization and participation, capacity for commercialization and rescue of values for the management of the environmental and animal welfare, since there is a relationship of coexistence and co-dependency.
“Animal welfare leads communities to explore the One Welfare and One Health approach, strengthening the conceptual and practical framework of work, and ADDAC to better understands the relationship between animal welfare, productivity, the environment and human development.”
Luis Rosales, Animal Welfare Technician, ADDAC
3.3 Key Considerations for Using a One Health or One Welfare Approach
Potential Benefits of Using OH/OW Approaches:
Promotes more holistic systems thinking which leads to more strategic and sustainable solutions. This can improve understanding and solutions for addressing root causes, exploring cause and effect relationships, or interdependencies that can have a spill over effect from one realm to another.
Can be a useful framework for tailoring communications in terms which speak to what stakeholders’ value and find relevant e.g. framing outreach messages to communities, donors, collaborators, or policy makers to ensure it speaks to their human or environment oriented interests rather being focused on animal welfare.
It can promote greater collaboration and interest in strategic partnerships by harnessing interest, expertise, and resources across sectors to address cross cutting issues resulting in greater efficiency in resource use and more sustainable solutions and benefits for all e.g. helps identify potential collaborators experienced in addressing human and environmental issues identified as root causes of animal welfare issues.
The One Health approach encourages a greater focus on prevention, which is justifiable due to being more cost effective, and can therefore be particularly appealing and make generating support amongst policy makers and leaders easier e.g. Using a OH approach can helps prevent pandemics like COVID 19 (Delia Grace, The business case of One Health – printed material.
Potential Limitations of Using OH/OW Approaches:
Designing every project as OH/OW project can limit the scope of issues addressed. While beneficial to utilize one health and one welfare frameworks when appropriate, projects should not feel beholden to using it, or require linkages to human or environmental health and welfare for every project. Animal welfare issues may not have linkages to human or environmental wellbeing, but that doesn’t make them any less important to address. It could potentially be more challenging to address them if communities or other stakeholders with whom you may wish to engage do not share the same animal welfare improvement priorities. In such cases, using the science of human behaviour change and best practices in participatory community engagement and development is recommended to inform project design and improve the effectiveness of implementation and attainment of desired results.
It can be challenging to collaborate and coordinate work across disciplines and different stakeholders e.g. identifying and establishing collaborations can be time consuming, there may be differences in ways of working or availability of resources that need to be resolved.
While these challenges should not be ignored, it is clear the potential benefits of collaborating in terms of the health and well-being of animals, people, and the environment, as well in terms shared resource investments in such projects, make them worthwhile when feasible.
This checklist is intended to assist projects in gender mainstreaming by providing a list of key considerations for mainstreaming gender within any project. It may be used as a framework to both design and evaluate projects in terms of the extent to which they include gender in their design, planning, implementation and monitoring and evaluation.
Have the key characteristics and possible differences among the target groups been clearly identified by sex, age, type of work, income, ethnic origin, etc.?
2
Has a gender analysis been conducted to identify and understand?
a) The needs of male and female beneficiaries
b) The problems that both men and women face related to their animals’ husbandry and management/use (not just men or women only)
c) Gender roles in the community or home related equine care and use between men and women, boys, and girls (e.g. decision-making in relation to equine care, use and management, accessing of service providers, perception of service providers about women and men), etc.)
d) The gender relations (norms, customs, traditions, beliefs) in the community or home related to the division of labour and benefits amongst men and women, boys, and girls as they relate to their animals.
3
Have the views of both men and women community stakeholders been sought in a consultative process?
4
Is the outcome of gender analysis used to inform the design of project plans?
Project Planning/Strategy
5
Are there strategies in place to ensure that men and women can participate equally in the project activities? For example, if household chores and family care responsibilities are roles expected of women and girls, they tend to have less time to participate in project activities. Are these kinds of concerns considered when organizing activities?
6
Are there clear strategies in place to ensure that women and men will equally benefit from project activities?
7
Have any existing gender inequalities been identified amongst community stakeholders that could potentially affect their ability to meet their animals welfare needs/adopt desired behaviours?
a) If yes, are any gender transformative strategies built into the project to address this?
8
Is the promotion of gender equality included explicitly as one of the project strategies? e.g. ensuring gender equality in representation in messaging, community leadership roles, how men and women are treated and their views valued by the project.
9
In strengthening the capacity of the target groups, is there a consideration to avoid increasing the workload of the members of the household who have a greater labour burden? e.g. women, girls
Project Planning/Outputs & Outcomes
10
Do the outputs (and corresponding indicators) reflect priority concerns and respond to the needs of both men and women related to their animals’ welfare/their ability to meet their animals’ welfare needs?
11
Do the outcomes and outputs identify the intended target stakeholders by gender or other marginalized or vulnerable group requiring special consideration (e.g. migratory workers, religion, caste, race etc.)?
12
Do the outputs specify the ratio or number of target stakeholders by gender or other relevant marginalized social status?
Project Implementation/Activities
13
In training/education activities, are the numbers of boys, girls, women, and men who will be trained/educated clearly stated?
14
Is there proportionate budget allocation as well as staff/trainer time investment to ensure all genders interests, needs and roles are given adequate attention to facilitate their empowerment to improve animal welfare?
15
If there is a high chance that women will participate less and/or potentially not benefit equally as men, have quota been set for men’s and women’s participation under the outputs and activities?
16
Are communication channels identified that will effectively reach specific target groups, in particular women and girls, and any other marginalized groups?
17
If women and girls, or men and boys, cannot or will not speak freely in mixed groups, are separate events planned for women/girls only and men/boys only, or with facilitators of the same sex to promote equal participation?
18
During project implementation, do staff take opportunities to raise awareness on gender equality and demonstrate that the participation of women alongside men is beneficial to everyone?
19
Does the programme have support from, or cooperate with, gender experts or organizations with gender expertise, if it needs assistance in this respect?
Project Monitoring and Evaluation
20
Does the project collect any information or data that can be disaggregated by gender or other marginalized group to identify potential inequalities, constraints, and opportunities these groups face?
21
Are methods and tools provided to project staff to enable them to effectively measure and evaluate the nature and extent of impact and benefits for male and female project stakeholders and/or other marginalized groups?
22
Does the project collect feedback from male and female stakeholders (or other marginalized groups)? Are the timings for feedback and monitoring meetings convenient for the gender roles of male and female stakeholders? Are there female facilitators/evaluators/translators etc. to create a safe space and culturally/religious norms of the area?
Understand what behaviour is and examples of factors influencing it.
Understand what the COM-B model and the Behaviour change wheel are, and why they are useful to designing effective behaviour change projects.
Understand that behaviour change is a process and the implications of this on supporting others to change their behaviour change.
Understand the key ethical considerations for working with communities to change behaviours to improve animal welfare.
1.1 DEFINING BEHAVIOUR AND UNDERSTANDING WHAT SHAPES IT
Behaviour is defined as the way in which an animal or person acts or responds because of a particular situation or stimulus. As domestic animals’ welfare is dependent on people meeting their needs, improving animal welfare requires promoting human behaviours that support positive animal welfare states. However, how people behave with their animals is underpinned by their value and beliefs, which creates their frame of reference based on their environments and experiences within it [17]. This frame of reference shapes how people understand themselves, others, animals, and the world. For example, how people treat their animals may be the result of what they have been socialized to believe is normal. In addition, people’s external context can also shape their behaviours and resultant welfare of their animals.
Figure 22: Example of a personal frame of reference that can shape a person’s behaviour (Adapted from [18])
Case Study How Kenyan Donkey Owners Behaviour is Influenced by their Frame of Reference [19]
A Donkey welfare project in Kenya undertook behaviour change research to better understand why the project was struggling to stop donkey owners from whipping their animals.
The research uncovered that donkey owners believe donkeys are ‘lazy and stubborn’ and will only listen or move faster if a whip is used. This belief system further reinforced by social norms and related experiences which normalized the use of discipline to correct behaviour.
As a result of understanding that these beliefs and norms were shaping people’s acceptance of whipping to communicate with their donkeys, the project explored alternative strategies for stopping whipping beyond raising people’s awareness about animal welfare and feelings, training in humane handling, and encouraging them to stop whipping. Without properly understanding the beliefs and norms influencing people’s expressed behaviour, why people continued to whip their donkeys would have remained poorly understood, and it would have been challenging to identify strategies best suited to supporting their behavioural change. This exemplifies the importance of not making assumptions about what needs to change, as this often leads ineffective behaviour change projects, and wasted time and resources spent working on addressing assumed rather than known barriers and motivators to change.
Projects seeking to change people’s behaviours are most commonly unsuccessful because they are designed based on assumptions about what needs to change without first understanding why people do what they do, from that person or groups’ frame of reference, and what their barriers and motivators to adopting the desired change [20, 21].
As any given behaviour is determined by many factors, understanding which to address to achieve the desired change, and then determining the most appropriate strategy for addressing it, can be a challenge. However, evidence suggests that behaviour change interventions that are grounded in theory are more effective than those that are not, with potential for the success of the intervention to increase with the number of theories included [22, 23, 24]. This learning module focuses on introducing the following four models and frameworks for understanding behaviour and how to change it because they are they represent the most comprehensive and well evidenced synthesis of human behaviour change science, and are helpful to understand to affect desired behaviour change to improve animal welfare:
COM-B Model of Behaviour used assess and identify what needs to change for a behaviour change intervention to be effective [25]
Trans-theoretical Model (TTM) of Behaviour Change: used to understand how individuals and populations progress toward adopting and maintaining behaviour change and provides guidance on motivating successful progression through the change process [27].
1.2 UNDERSTANDING BEHAVIOUR USING THE COM-B MODEL AND THEORETICAL DOMAINS FRAMEWORK (TDF)
As we have learned through the C4A learning modules, animal welfare issues arise because of human's actions/inactions, and these human behaviours can be challenging to change. The COM-B model or system of behaviour is the easiest and most widely used model for understanding behaviour. “The COM-B model conceptualises behaviour as a part of a system of interacting elements that also involves capability, opportunity and motivation. For any behaviour to occur at a given moment, there must be the capability and opportunity to engage in the behaviour, and the strength of motivation to engage in it must be greater than for any competing behaviours. Capability may be physical or psychological, opportunity may be social or physical and motivation may be ‘reflective’ or ‘automatic’” [25]. Capability, opportunity, and motivation are drivers of behaviour which influence each other, as well as collectively drive change in behaviour, as illustrated by the figure below.
Figure 23: COM-B Model/System of Behaviour (adapted from [21])
The COM-B model provides a simple and systems-based framework for investigating people’s existing behaviour, and the barriers and/or motivators to the adoption of new desired behaviour. The Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) can be thought of as a variant of the COM-B model, and similarly seeks to explain behavioural change by understanding the factors influencing behaviour. Through a synthesis of behaviour change theory, 14 domains, or determinants of behaviour were identified. The domains include knowledge; skills; memory; attention and decision process; behavioural regulation; social/professional role and identity; beliefs about capabilities; optimism; beliefs about consequences; intentions; goals; reinforcement; emotions; environmental context and resources; and social influences [28, 26]. These can be correlated with COM-B components, providing a further detailed understanding of the factors influencing behaviour related to each COM-B component. The definitions for each of these domains are reviewed in the book – ‘The Behaviour Change Wheel – A Guide to Designing Interventions’ [21].
The components of the COM-B model are defined below along with their relevance to the different TDF domains [25]:
CAPABILITY (C): Capability is defined as the individual’s psychological and physical capacity to engage in the activity concerned. It includes having the necessary knowledge and skills.
Physical Capability: refers to having physical strength and ability/or developed skill to carry out the behaviour. Examples: strength to carry water for animals, skill, and ability to pick up and clean hooves.
Relevant TDF domains:physical skills
Psychological Capability: refers to having the knowledge or understanding or emotional or cognitive or behavioural skill to practice the behaviour. Example: knowledge and skills in animal husbandry, ability to regulate emotions to promote positive human-animal interactions and compassionate handling.
Relevant TDF domains: knowledge; cognitive and interpersonal skills; memory, attention, and decision processes; behavioural regulation
OPPORTUNITY (O): all the factors that lie outside the individual that make the behaviour possible or prompt it can be defined as opportunity and includes both physical and social opportunity.
Physical Opportunity: is about factors in one’s environment that supporting the enactment of the behaviour through changing the physical environment.Examples: access and availability to animal related resources and services, financial resources, time etc.
Relevant TDF domains:environmental context and resources
Social Opportunity: is about whether animal owners/carers/users have social support from peers, family members or other service providers or community members in general to practice the desired behaviour change; or have a value/belief system that validates the desired behaviour change or condemns the problem behaviour.Examples: People who treat their animals well are held in high regard by others in their community; Animal health service providers acknowledge women as decision-makers and are responsive to their animal health needs.
Relevant TDF domains:social influences
MOTIVATION (M): Motivation is defined as all those brain processes that energize and direct behaviour, not just goals and conscious decision-making. It includes habitual processes, emotional responding, as well as analytical decision-making.
Reflective Motivation: refers to reflective processes involving plans (self-conscious intentions), evaluations, beliefs about what is good and bad, and understanding weighing benefits and consequences. Example: donkey owners believed their animals were stubborn and that they would only be motivated to work if they feared punishment.
Relevant TDF domains: professional role and identity; beliefs about capabilities; optimism; beliefs about consequences; intentions; and goals
Automatic Motivation: Automatic processes involving emotional reactions, desires (wants and needs), impulses, inhibitions, drive states and reflex responses. Includes habit formation, as habits are likely to form because of an established cue-response-reward loop [19].Example: Members of animal owning households have been conditioned to allow their animals to freely socialize with other animals because they feel a sense of happiness when they see their animals playing.
Relevant TDF domains: reinforcement (e.g. what incentivizes behaviour?); and emotions (e.g. positive, or negative emotional responses of behaviour?)
Changing behaviour will generally involve changing one or more of the COM-B factors relating to the behaviour itself, or to the behaviours that compete with or support it. Because the three components of COM-B can interact and influence one another and the resultant behaviour, it enables the user to identify the components within COM-B that need to change for the behaviour to change. For example, you conduct a COM-B diagnosis to identify what needs to change for donkey owners to adopt desired feeding practices and find: The person does not know what defines nutritious feed for their working donkey (capability); quality donkey feed is expensive and not available locally (opportunity), and owners believe their animals are property and don’t prioritize investing in their welfare (motivation). In this case, a project assuming improving people’s knowledge and skills about appropriate donkey feeding practices would unlikely be effective in changing them. This example demonstrates how understanding what needs to change in terms of COM-B can encourage innovative and strategic thinking when designing behaviour change projects and help avoid the common pitfall of unsuccessful behaviour change projects which is making assumptions about what needs to change [21].
TDF can be similarly helpful to understanding influencing factors acting as barriers or motivators to behaviour change. However, undertaking in depth behavioural analysis across the 14 domains is not always needed, feasible, or desired all project contexts or communities. In this way, COM-B is simpler and easier to use. However, considering the TDF domains when undertaking a COM-B diagnosis can support a more comprehensive analysis of factors influencing a target behaviour, as well as greater insight into potential intervention options. For example, consider using the TDF to inform the development of focus group discussion questions to explore behavioural barriers and motivators with communities. For further information on the use of the TDF, COM-B model, and BCW refer to the “The Behaviour Change Wheel – A Guide to Designing Interventions” [21].
Specific Topics: Outreach and Communications; Compassion/Empathy; Community Change Agents
2a. Promoting Effective Interpersonal Communication through Emotional Intelligence
The most important skills that can improve a community facilitator’s ability to be a catalyst for change and influence behaviour change are effective inter-personal communication skills, which are comprised by the skills people use to exchange information, feelings, and meaning through verbal and non-verbal messages.
Emotional intelligence (EI) is a foundational competency in effective inter-personal communication defined as the ability to recognize and manage our own feelings, and recognize and respond effectively to those of others [94]. Emotions are one of the aspects to lookout under automatic motivation as positive or negative feelings can either encourage or discourage a particular behaviour. Emotional intelligence can enable community facilitators to respond to challenging situations in ways which improve rather than hinder collaborations and better support communities’ in changing their behaviour.
EI is comprised of four competency domains related to understanding and managing one’s self (personal competencies), and relationships with others (social competencies) including: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and social skills. The figure below illustrates emotional intelligence in terms of these four competency domains, demonstrating how they influence each other and ultimately the community facilitators’ ability to be successful in their work [94, 95]. Emotional self-awareness is a precursor to the other three competencies, as the more we are aware of our feelings the easier they are to manage and in turn effectively interact with others.
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE COMPETENCIES AND THE WORK OF COMMUNITY FACILITATORS - Diagram adapted from [95, 94, 96]
2b. Transactional Analysis - Using Human Psychology to Improve Communications
Effective interpersonal communication and relations can be improved through an understanding of the concept of transactional analysis (TA) [97]. Transactional analysis is psychological model developed by Eric Berne to make sense of how people interact with one another (referred to as transactions) based on their feelings influencing their actions [98]. TA has proven a useful method for increasing emotional intelligence by helping one become aware of one’s emotions, exert greater self- control which are essential to ensuring the effectiveness of communication and associated positive interactions with others [98].
The key assumptions of TA are as follows [99, 98]:
People are OK: all people are good and worthy when they enter the world.
All people can think: every person has the capacity to think, and are therefore responsible for the decisions they make.
All people can change: as everyone is responsible for their decisions, change is possible and decisions need not be determined by one's past.
Key Influences on Inter-personal Communications
1. Ego States
TA defines the different “ways of being” or “personalities” people adopt in their interactions with others, and refers to these as ego states. Our interpersonal communications can be classified as falling into one of the three following ego states: the child ego state, the parent ego state, and the adult ego state [98]. Each of these ego states are comprised of consistent feelings and behaviours, and these activate (unconsciously) in our interactions. By enabling you to identify which ego state is activated when interacting with others, TA can help better manage your emotions and respond in ways which promote collaboration and improve your ability to influence behaviour change in others. The three ego states of parent, adult, and child are further described below [100]:
Parent Ego State: the parent ego state is rooted in the past, and contains the attitudes, feelings, and behaviours taught/learned fromour parents or other significant authority figures. It involves responding as one of our parents would have: saying what they would have said, feeling what they would have felt, behaving how they would have behaved. It can take one of two forms: 1) the critical parent (criticizing, censoring, punishing authority-based judgments or rules e.g. “You should”, “You must”), and 2) the nurturing parent (protective, loving, and encouraging). The parent state can negatively hinder our interactions when experienced as being judgemental, dominant, punishing, condescending, smothering, overprotective or stifling. Other examples which may indicate the unhelpful parent ego state is activated include: impatient body language, anger, judgemental comments, criticisms, providing unsolicited advice, ordering others, raised eyebrows, arms folded across chest, blaming others.
The concepts of ego states and life positions are discussed below as they are key influencers on our inter-personal communications.
Adult Ego State: the adult ego state is the only ego state rooted in the present and contains the attitudes, feelings and behaviours we have learned to help us interpret reality based on our rational, objective appraisals. A person behaving or interacting with their adult ego will properly seek information and use their reasoning skills to evaluate it before making decisions. Interacting from the adult ego state is always the ideal as it promotes clear, effective communication because responses are logical and appropriate to the situation or present, and this ego state is able to keep the parent and child ego state under control. A good way to know if your adult ego state is activated is to examine whether your questions/comments are fuelled by compassion and curiosity, or irritable emotions, the desire to blame, criticize, and/or prove a point. Other example indicators the adult ego state is activated may include: being/feeling relaxed/composed, calm, open, reasoned statements, unemotional, thoughtful, leaning in to listen/look, clear confident tone, taking responsibility, focused on facts not opinions, discussing alternatives or results, seeking information, evaluating pros-and-cons, questioning: “why?, how?, who?, what?, where?, how?”
Child Ego State: the child ego state is rooted in the past, and contains the attitudes, feelings, and behaviours we feltin our childhood related to avoiding perceived painful experiences or pursuing pleasurable experiences. It involves responding instinctually in the present as we would have as a child seeking to meet its basic needs: saying what we would have said, feeling what we would have felt, and behaving how we would have behaved as a child. The child ego can present in one of two forms: 1) the adapted/rebellious child (defiant, complaining, compliant, and/or passive). 2) free child (curious, creative, spontaneous, affectionate and fun-loving). The child ego state may negatively hinder interactions when anger or despair dominates an individuals’ reasoning. Other indicators the unhelpful child ego state is activated may include: feeling/being resistant, defensive, uncompromising, withdrawn, disengaged, helpless, dejected, sullen, manipulative, subservient, obstructive, destructive, wanting one’s own way, feeling like a victim/persecuted, shoulder shrugging, irritable, monotone, fidgeting.
In TA, interactions are referred to as complementary when the ego states of the interacting parties are the same/sympathetic to one another (e.g. child-child, adult-adult, parent-parent). This means there is alignment between what an individual says and expects to receive as a response, and what they actually receive as a response, and results in more clear and effective communication [100]. Alternatively, when transactions occur between individuals communicating with each other from different ego states (e.g. parent-child, adult-parent etc.) they are referred to as crossed transactions, which can lead to breakdowns in communication, misunderstanding, and associated conflict.
Examples 1 (top) and 2 (middle)
Examples 3 (left) and 4 (right)
Examples of complementary transactions:
Parent-Parent (See Example 1): “What a terrible meeting!” - “One of the worst I’ve been to!”
Adult-Adult (See Example 2): “I noticed you weren’t able to take action since we last spoke, can we talk about what’s been going on for you?” - “You’re right, I’ve been really busy with illness in the family, however plan to take action now that things have calmed down”
Child-Child “I’m not going to try these recommendations as the people who made them don’t even understand our lives!” - “Yeah, I’m not going to bother trying any of them either.”
Examples of crossed transactions:
Parent-Child (See Example 3): “You should be careful or your animal won’t be able to continuing to earn money for you” - “What do you care?”
Adult-Child (See Example 4): “We haven’t spoken for a while and I’d be interested to hear your experiences trialling the solutions we discussed when we last met.” - “I feel like giving up as nothing is working!”
Adult-Parent: “I noticed you attended the training, what were key learnings for you?” - “They should have provided that training ages ago when we really needed it!”
The goal of TA is to have all parties involved converse in the idealized state of adult-adult because these are the only interactions informed by rational appraisals of reality in the present (vs feelings or learnings from the past), and thus result in clear and effective communication, decision making, and problem solving. However, as we go about our daily lives, we move from one ego state to another in reaction to different interactions without any thought, and our (perceived) ego state can also elicit different ego states in others that can either help or hinder communications and relations. Operating in the idealized adult-adult state can therefore be challenging, particularly when we are faced with emotionally difficult situations or interactions with people who have not yet developed an ability to manage their emotions and behaviours.
The following example illustrates how ego states inform the nature of our transactions:
When a community member feels like their needs are not being met e.g. does not feel understood, or like they are being judged by the community facilitator, their “child” ego state of mind may intervene to influence their interaction causing them act uncooperatively in defiance. This child ego state response may in turn arouse frustration in the facilitator, arousing an annoyed “parent” ego state response which can further break down relations as a sense of disdain takes over their interactions. This example illustrates how the parent and child ego states interact to create crossed transactions and undesirable outcomes. However with an understanding of TA, the community facilitator can identify ego states activated in themselves and others, and manage their emotions to effectively communicate from their adult ego state without undermining relations with community members that can hinder desired behaviour change and animal welfare improvements.
2. Life Positions
In addition to the ego states that define our personality state in any given moment, TA also defines “life positions” which are the basic beliefs about ourselves and others which act as the frame of reference through which we experience our interactions with others [101]. These beliefs refer to our sense of feeling “OK or “not-OK” about ourselves and those we’re interacting with, and ultimately influence the nature of our social interactions. In this context, being “OK” refers the innate value, goodness, worth, and equal right to live and meet needs we perceive ourselves and other parties in the interaction to have. The TA model assumes that everyone is born viewing themselves and others as “OK”; however it also recognizes our childhood experiences shape can change our perception of ourselves and/or others as “not OK”. Life positions therefore may change and adapt throughout life as we learn in develop, and can also be influenced by our/others’ states of being (ego states). As we interact with others, we take one of four life positions, which in turn result in one of four specific social interaction reactions or outcomes as illustrated in the below matrix and described further below [102, 99, 103, 101]:
Life Positions and their Influence on Social Interaction Outcomes adapted from Franklin Ernst’s OK Corral
I am not OK with me (-) (e.g. I don’t feel good/worthy/equal)
You’re OK with me (+) (e.g. I feel you are good/worthy/equal)
I am OK with Me (+) (e.g. I feel good/worthy/equal)
Helpless/One Down Position I’m not OK, You’re OK
Interaction Outcome: I get away from you
Healthy Position I’m OK, You’re OK
Interaction Outcome: I get on with you
Hopeless Position I’m not OK, You’re not OK
Interaction Outcome: I get nowhere with you
Better than You/One Up Position I’m OK, You’re not OK
Interaction Outcome: I get rid of you
You are not OK with me (-) (e.g. I don’t feel you are good/worthy/equal)
Healthy Position = I am OK, you are OK
This is the healthiest position, with people occupying this position holding the belief they and anyone else in the interaction are innately worthy and valuable. This position is grounded in the belief in one’s own abilities, and is characterized by mutual respect and seeing the best in the other person, thereby allowing parties to find a constructive approach to issues. This healthy position is expressed in the adult ego state, and results in the individual wanting to continue interacting with the other party (I get on with you).To adopt this way of thinking requires self-awareness and the ability to manage one’s emotions (automatic motivation). In addition, this position benefits from having positive beliefs about self (reflective motivation) e.g. confidence, self-esteem, self-efficacy, perceived competencies, sense of empowerment, and behavioural control. It also requires feeling one’s role and identity are valuable, even in the face of factors which may render one disadvantaged or marginalized. As such, this position may be a challenge for community members to adopt, particularly if they are marginalized and lack this self-belief. However, by communicating from this position using the adult ego state, community facilitators can demonstrate their belief in community members’ worth and value, which can contribute to improving community members’ own belief in their ability to make desired changes.
Better than you/One Up Position = I am OK, you are not OK
In this position the individual is at an advantage or feels superior or right (“I’m OK”) and projects anger, disgust, or disdain onto the person with whom they are interacting who they perceive to be wrong, inferior, or a scapegoat (“You’re not OK”). As a result of this projection of anger, blame, and/or criticism, the other party may get angry in response. This position can be expressed in the critical parent or rebellious child ego state, and results in an individual blaming or feeling hostile towards the other party (I get rid of you). When community facilitators operate from this position they can undermine community members’ self-efficacy when they don’t seek to understand community members’ lived experiences or recognize them as experts in their own lives and instead act as the expert or limit their meaningful participation, which can give the impression they don’t believe community members are capable of change or finding solutions to their own issues.
Helpless/One Down Position = I am not OK, you are OK
In this position, the individual feels disadvantaged, helpless and disempowered in comparison with others they are interacting with and may experience themselves as victims. This position is often expressed in the rebellious child ego, and creates a sense of wanting to withdraw from others in the interaction (e.g. I get away from you) due to not feeling as worthy as others in the interaction, often as a result of existing limiting self-beliefs (e.g. individuals who are marginalized or discriminated against may not believe they have anything valuable to contribute, or believe in their capability to affect change).
Hopeless Position = I am not OK, you are not OK
In this position, the individual perceives themselves and the other party as not good, worthy, or having equal rights. It is essentially a hopeless and frustrating situation where effective communication is very difficult. This position if often expressed in the rebellious child ego, and results in the individual feeling that their interactions with the other party are futile (I get nowhere with you). For example, individuals who have experienced discrimination may have developed limiting self beliefs as well as a lack of trust in others/social systems, which cause them to feel hopeless about working with others or trying to affect change.
In the previous example where the community member interacts from a child ego state and community facilitator from their parent ego-state, the community member perceived the interaction from a hopeless life position as they don’t feel “OK” about themselves or the community facilitator, which results in their child ego state influencing the community facilitator’s to perceive the interaction and respond from a Better than you/One up life position. As this example shows, it is important to understand how your ego state and life positions may be triggered when faced with emotional situations and interactions with community members, as well be aware their ego states, so you can manage your feelings, thoughts, and actions and respond in ways that not to hinder your influence and ability to collaborate. Additional examples of how TA can aid your role as a community facilitator include:
It is important for community facilitators to understand that different communities and social groups may respond or behave differently as a result of their unique social and cultural experiences and learnings influencing their ways of being (ego states) and relating (life positions). TA can help you understand, appreciate and accept this diversity amongst community members, and help reduce unconscious bias from hindering your efforts to promote inclusivity, diversity and equality, and achievement of desired behaviour change outcomes [104].
When one is exposed to situations where the welfare of animals or people is compromised, community facilitators can experience negative feelings such as anger and hostility which can be challenging to manage (e.g. child or parent ego state). When these negative emotions influence community facilitator’s perceptions of, or are directed towards community members, the ability be an effective community servant can be compromised as rapport and trust break down [104]. Being aware of how and when your ego state and life position influence your interactions in these situations can enable you to regain control of your feelings, thoughts and actions so you can respond appropriately from your adult ego state.
How to Apply Transactional Analysis in Practice
Two models which help to understand how our roles in social interaction, which are influenced by our ego states and life positions, can produce ineffective and effective communication are referred to as the Drama Triangle and Winner’s Triangle which are illustrated in the figures below.
The Drama Triangle is a model which describes conflicted or drama intense relationship transactions [105]. The drama triangle defines the three unconscious roles people take on (and can switch between) in stressful, emotional, or high conflict situations. When two people enter an interaction in one of the three roles on the drama triangle, their interactions will be characterized by drama, stress, conflict, or rescuing people from their responsibilities to solution problems for themselves. These interactions are unhelpful, and interfere with problem solving and effective communication. The three roles of the drama triangle which are further described below are Victim, Persecutor, and Rescuer; and people are likely to have a preference for playing one of these roles.
VictimRole: people who play this role feel oppressed, hopeless, and helpless. They may complain of unmet needs, and be unable to make decisions, solve problems, take pleasure in life, or achieve insight. The payoff for individuals who take this role is that they can avoid dealing with things that are unpleasant or difficult. The problem with the victim role is that individuals discount themselves, and typically seek out a persecutor and a rescuer who they think will save them but who in fact just disempowers them by perpetuating the victim’s negative feelings and/or creating dependency e.g. nothing is my fault, I’m not capable, poor me. The victim role is aligned with the hopeless (I am not OK, You are Not OK) or helpless/one down life positions (I am not OK, you are OK). Characteristics commonly associated with the victim role include: complaining, being helpless, withdrawing, catastrophizing, pretending to be incompetent.
RescuerRole: people who play this role tend to be enablers, will feel guilty if they don’t come to rescue, can be over-helpful, self-sacrificing. The payoff of this role is to be needed, wanted or liked. The problem with the rescuer role is that rescuing discounts others’ ability to think for themselves, keeps those in the victim role dependent, and gives the victim permission to fail e.g. you need me, let me help. The rescuer role is very prevalent amongst helping and caring professions, and is aligned with better than you/one up position (I am OK, you are not OK). Characteristics commonly associated with the rescuer role include: fixing, telling, giving solutions, taking over, martyrdom.
Persecutor Role: people who play this role tend to blame, criticise, and can be oppressive, controlling, rigid, authoritative, angry, and unpleasant. The payoff for persecutors is that they get what they want. However the issue with this role is that they tend to discount others’ value and integrity, don’t enable others to show their full potential, and keep the victim feeling oppressed by their demanding and inflexible behaviour. Persecutors will seek to control and criticize while failing to solve any problems or help anyone else solve the problem e.g. its all your fault, you got it wrong, and people tend to want to get away from them whenever they can. The persecutor role is aligned with the better than you/one up life position (I am OK, you are not OK). Characteristics commonly associated with the persecutor role include: criticizing, blaming, labelling, putting others down, feeling inadequate.
While the Drama triangle describes the above roles in their most extreme form, we often encounter milder versions of these roles in our work and personal lives. When people are caught up in a drama triangle, they will switch roles, and a rescuer may become a victim or a victim may become a rescuer, and these roles can change as the dynamics of the interactions change and develop.
As an alternative to the problematic drama triangle, the winner’s triangle was developed as a model for more productive social interactions that lead to a win-win situation for everyone involved [106].The roles within the winner’s triangle reflect the positive aspects of the three drama triangle roles and include: Assertive (vs. persecutor), Caring (vs. rescuer), and Vulnerable (vs. victim), which are further defined below [106, 107]:
Vulnerable Role: people who play this role may be suffering however express their real feelings, accept themselves, use their thinking and problem solving, and take action to care for themselves.
Caring Role: people who play this role have genuine concern for people which they demonstrate by: giving help when asked, trusting the other person has their own answers, accepting and encouraging others’ to think for themselves, actively listening (without trying to solve the problem), having clear boundaries, doing their share, and not doing things they don’t want to do (unless absolutely necessary). They are caring, understanding, and don’t need to be needed by others.
Assertive Role: people who play this role are aware of their own feelings, needs and wants, and act in their own best interests by: asking for what they want, saying no to what they don’t want, being flexible in order to get their own needs met, and don’t punish or others feel wrong. They often use “I” statements (vs. you statements), are non-judgemental, and accept others’ value and integrity.
The drama triangle can be transformed into the winner’s triangle through development of one’ self-awareness, managing one’s emotions, and communicate effectively [107]. Once we understand these drama patterns and become aware we are no longer operating in the adult ego state, we can break free and choose to step off the drama triangle and consciously seek to operate from our adult ego state.
As facilitators of behaviour change, it is therefore helpful to understand which role you tend to play on the Drama triangle. For example, as a community facilitator you may have a tendency to step on to the drama triangle in the role of rescuer, or potentially persecutor, and perceive community members as the victim who either are to blame for the welfare issues of their animals or who need your help to address observed welfare issues. Or you may perceive other community members or stakeholders within the role of persecutor, for example the animal health service provider who provides poor treatment and puts animals at risk may be perceived as the persecutor. These roles may then change if after your initial interactions, you find community members are not following your advice on how to improve animal welfare and are instead following the advice of the poorly trained animal health service provider. In this example, you may find yourself moving from rescuer to persecutor and start feeling negative feelings towards the animal owner. These feelings and associated responses and interactions are unhelpful to problem solving and achievement of the goal for improved animal welfare. Alternatively, if you perceived the animal health service provider in the role of persecutor, this would be similarly unhelpful to promoting a collaborative approach to addressing animal welfare issues.
When our professional interactions don’t seem authentic, or when we find ourselves confused or frustrated by conversations with others, we probably we have entered into one of the roles on the drama triangle. So how can you become free of all that could be holding you back so you can relate to people with congruence and authentic influence?
Use the following steps when interacting with community members to support effective inter-personal communication to promote collaboration and improve your ability to influence behaviour change:
Notice how you feel: the first thing to do when you feel a sense of confusion, irritation frustration, or helplessness is simply to notice this is actually happening. Ask yourself the following questions to improve your self-awareness:
Are we frustrated, confused, irritated, do we feel it's somebody else's fault?
Does that mean that we might be operating from a parent or child role?
Are we feeling “not ok” about ourselves or the other person?
Do we feel as if we're in our adult ego state?
Are we experiencing crossed transactions (where either our and/or another person’s non-adult ego state is operating).
Think about what might be happening for you, and also for the other person?
Listen - in order to communicate effectively we first need to listen (for additional guidance re to section on active listening below)
Move to your adult ego state
Soothe the child or parent ego state (yours or the other’s)
Enabling someone to move to their adult ego state so they can communicate from their best self is easily done by giving a few meaningful and positive comments e.g. empathetic responses or positive affirmations (for additional guidance refer to sections on empathy and active listening below). For example, you can say “That must be difficult for you”, “I understand how stressful that is for you”, “I know its frustrating when things don’t go as you believe they should” which helps the person then move back to their adult ego state so you can interact in a congruent adult-adult ego state.
Feel/show: it is important to authentically feel, and to show qualities of respect, vulnerability, authenticity, and empathy.
By understanding TA and being aware of the different ego states, you can learn not to respond based on unhelpful ways of being (e.g. from parent or child ego states, unhealthy life positions), and instead choose to respond consciously to improve communication, collaboration, and your ability to influence human behaviour change. TA therefore lends itself to strengthening emotional intelligence and inter-personal communication in the following ways:
Improves self-awareness through enabling identification and understanding of our/others’ emotional state and how this is influenced by/influences inter-personal interactions
Enables self-management as we can learn to keep our emotions under control once we are aware of them, thereby enabling us to choose to react consciously and in ways which are congruent with our values and objectives even in the face of challenges
Improves social awareness by enabling us to understand how others are feeling and why they reacting as they are,
Increases social skills by enabling us to respond effectively and with empathy, based on an understanding of our self and others, which also helps mitigate potential for conflict and break downs in interpersonal relations.
2c. Key Communication Skills
Empathy: Understanding Others’ Perspective
Empathy is a foundational skill which underpins emotional intelligence. The ability to communicate (send and receive messages) and lead by understanding others' thoughts, views, and feelings (being empathetic) is one of the most important means through which community facilitators enhance the quality of their interactions with community members to influence transformation and change.
Definition of Empathy: empathy is the ability to see things from another person’s point of view or from their frame of reference and feel what they feel. It involves understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another person without making judgements [108]. In terms of communication, being empathetic involves communicating your sense of the other person’s experiences and feelings from your understanding of their perspective.
Benefits of Being Empathetic
Empathy involves being able to understand what a person is feeling in a given moment and also why their behaviours or actions make sense to them and we can use these insights to appropriately frame our communications with others, build trust and strengthen our relationships, and ultimately be more effective leading and inspiring desired change. The benefits of empathy are further described below:
Rapport Building: when facilitators express understanding of community members’ experience and feelings, and community members in turn feel they are accurately understood, accepted, and feel secure, rapport is built which is critical to a facilitator’s ability to influence behaviour change.
Improved Understanding and Awareness: responding with empathy provides community facilitators the opportunity to better organize and reflect back the meaning of the information community members are processing and communicating. This enables the facilitator to:
Demonstrate and check their own understanding of community members’ experiences and feelings, and
Evoke community members’ own reflections to support them in identifying problematic behaviours and solutions for themselves, as opposed to telling them or providing personal opinions or judgements which can cause defensiveness and a break down in relations. This is helpful to facilitating community members’ to move through the stages of change.
Guidance on Being Empathetic
Factors Influencing Empathy: People tend to be more empathetic toward some people and less so toward others [108]. As acommunity facilitator, it important to understand some of the factors that may influence your empathy so you can mitigate them and ensure your empathy is consistent across people you interact with. Factors influencing empathy include [108]:
How you perceive the other person
How you attribute the other individual's behaviours
What you blame for the other person's predicament
Your past experiences and expectations
You can mitigate these factors’ potential negative influence and improve your ability to be empathetic through an understanding and application of transactional analysis, particularly in relation to its assumptions, ego states, and life positions. Furthermore, the following points provide suggestions for how to be empathetic with others [109]:
Actively listen: effective listening must be active, which requires listening attentively to a speaker, understanding what they're saying, responding and reflecting on what's being said (refer to section below for guidance on active listening). It can also be demonstrated by providing appropriate feedback through body language e.g. nodding, smiling to encourage them continue, leaning forward, eye contact etc. Active listening encourages both the listener and speaker to remain actively engaged in the conversation.
Imagine yourself in the other person’s situation and accept their interpretation of it: By Imagining being in same situation as the person enables you to connect with their emotions and perspective and help ensure you don’t draw incorrect conclusions, comment and/or judge from your perspective without knowing the full details of what a person is experiencing e.g. “this is no big deal”, “you should try harder”, “you’re overreacting” etc. It is important to accept their interpretation of their experiences/situation without judging it, even if you do not agree and have a different interpretation.
Show care and concern: when someone tells you about their challenges or issues, show care and concern by asking how they are doing, if they would like your support, and/or let them know you are there to listen and support them in the ways you can/as appropriate.
Acknowledge the person’s feelings: it is important to validate people’s experiences and feelings as a means to build trust and rapport before working with them to address issues. Acknowledging means to recognize the importance of how they are feeling. Ensure you do no brush off or dismiss their feelings, avoid the topic, say something irrelevant, or attempt to move the conversation on before acknowledging and respecting how they feel.
Ask questions: ask people questionsto learn more about them and their lives and help encourage people to share more (refer to section below on open questions).
Don’t Rush the Conversation: a common mistake in community facilitation is trying to rush conversations to reach a certain end point or achieve a predetermined objective. When someone is sharing about their situation or issues, glossing over what they are feeling to rush towards the desired end point without acknowledging their feelings is invalidating and undermines the potential for collaboration. The more empathetic thing to do is connect with them based on their current emotional state by understanding their perspective and how they feel, and then seek to move them forward with questions. For example, a conversation like this may flow like this: “That sounds really frustrating” → “What happened that made it so difficult?” → “How are you feeling about it now?” → “What are your ideas about how to move forward?”. You can better build rapport by pacing the conversation and matching a person’s emotional state rather than trying to rush a conversation to a specific end point.
Don’t Judge: it is important to not to express judgement on an issue or person, nor form one before you understand the situation. Instead always give people the benefit of the doubt and understand they are doing the best they can and likely have their own justified reasons for their decisions, thoughts, and actions. It is also important to remember that all people have the ability to change and to uphold this belief regardless of their current actions.
Mirroring: mirroring is about connecting authentically with others by imitating their nonverbal signals as a means to build rapport e.g. their gestures, speech patterns, or attitude etc. The goal is not to copy someone’s mannerisms blindly but rather to adjust your behaviour to match their tone and vibe to create a sense of congruence with them.
Show emotional support: emotional support means giving people your trust, affirmation and encouragement (refer to section below on affirmations). Let them know that you will support them in whatever they choose to do and do not judge them. An example of a supportive statement is: “Knowing you, you always consider things very carefully. You know your situation best and I am supportive of whatever you choose to do.” Sometimes, what people are looking for is not answers or not solutions, but rather are looking for empathy and support.
In addition to the above, other things you can do to strengthen your empathy skills include [108]:
Work on listening to people without interrupting.
Pay attention to body language and other types of nonverbal communication.
Seek to learn more about how others feel to strengthen your connection with them.
Seek to identify your biases to understand and mitigate how they affect your perceptions of others.
Look for ways in which you are similar to others versus focusing on your differences.
Be willing to be vulnerable and open about how you feel.
Engage in new experiences to improve your understanding of how others in that situation may feel.
Examples of Responding with Empathy
Example Scenario: a community member expresses the following: “I’d like to meet my livestock’s welfare needs and am worried that I won’t be able to continue to rely them to earn a living if I don’t; but I don’t know what I can do given how busy I am and how limited my resources are. It’s overwhelming.”
Examples of empathetic responses:
“You rely on your animals and care about their wellbeing, and face challenges in meeting their needs which leaves you feeling very overwhelmed and not sure what to do.”
“It is understandable that you are worried about your animals and your livelihood which depends on them, and feel a sense of powerlessness.”
“There’s a looming uncertainty and risk if you don’t meet your animals’ welfare needs, and it feels like there’s a wall in front of you which prevents you from being able to take action to improve their welfare.”
“So, on the one hand, you want to take action and improve your animals’ welfare, but on the other, you worry you won’t be able to do anything even though you have the desire to.”
Applying Empathy to Improve Communications
When you are communicating it is important to adapt your communication to what will be most effective for the interaction from the perspective of the person you are engaging with. The following two step sequence outline how you can take the concept of empathy and apply it to your communication practices [110]:
Attribution: attribution is the act of gathering information concerning where your audience or recipient is and how they will best receive your message. You can do this by seeking to understand the perspective of the person receiving your communication and see the world from their eyes and understand how they feel. This will enable you to make some “attributions” about where they are, what they want, and how they may need something conveyed to them.
Accommodation: once you have taken into account the perspective of the person receiving your communication, you will then need to accommodate their perspective and feelings by adapting your behaviour and communication to their perspective. Adapting to a context and speaking empathically doesn’t mean you have to tell people whatever they want, but rather when you know where people are at, you can be more effective in compelling them into a different future. To help you adapt your communications to be empathetic, consider the following questions from the perspective of your audience [110]:
What communication do they need to hear (e.g. choosing the right words that make the most sense in the situation to fit their perspective)?
How do they need to hear it?
Where do they need to hear it?
What is the style they need to hear it in?
Why they are interested in hearing it in the first place?
Active Listening - open ended questions, affirmations, reflective listening, summarizing
The core skill associated with effective communication is active listening which includes: asking open questions, and providing affirmations, reflections and summaries. This can be remembered by the acronym OARS.
Listening is different to hearing what someone says. It is a very active process and can achieve the empathy, deep curiosity and exploration of someone’s perspective needed in the change process. This can also be vital to overcome any challenges regarding the interpersonal relationship between listener and speaker.
OPEN QUESTIONS
Open questions are questions that encourage more than a yes or no answer. They elicit understanding, encourage talking and facilitate abstract thinking skills.
The goal: use more open than closed questions.
Open Question Examples:
“How are you today?”
“What’s made you speak to me about this?”
“Can you tell me more about that?”
“Why do you want to make this change?”
Additional tips for framing open-ended questions to be authentic and situationally appropriate:
During initial discussions, ask questions which first seek to identify a person’s own understanding of situation/problem e.g. ask what they know about the issue. This will enable you to focus your discussion with them on areas where they may lack understanding or awareness.
Remain curious to learn and focus on evoking more change talk through open ended questions and reflections.
Keep in mind which stage of change a person is in at a given point in time, and tailor your questions depending on their stage of change/how they respond. For example you can tailor questions or elicit change talk in pre-contemplation, contemplation stage, or tailor questions to evoke ideas about how to plan/solutions in preparation stage. How to use open ended questions within the four facilitation processes for facilitating progress through the stages are described below:
Process of Engagement: use open ended questions when starting to build a foundational relationship to gain sense of what is important to community members and help build rapport
Process of Focusing: after rapport has been built, use open ended questions to begin identifying the priority issues community members are interested in to set a clear direction for working together moving forward.
Process of Evoking: use open ended questions here to elicit change talk change talk and draw out their own reasons and motivations for change.
Process of Planning: once community members are aware of the issue and have expressed a desire to change to behaviour, use open ended questions to ask about what they think they can do/what solutions they can implement to achieve desired change.
AFFIRMATIONS
Affirming means to actively listen for a client’s positive strengths, skills, values, efforts, accomplishments, aspirations and traits, and to reflect those to the client.
The goal: be in a mind-set of consciously ‘looking out for’ these positive qualities, and, if genuinely appreciated, to reflect them back to community members.
Affirmation Examples:
“You came up with a lot of great ideas to address your animal’s welfare needs. Great brainstorming today.”
“It’s important to you to be a good animal owner.”
“You are the kind of person who takes their responsibilities seriously, and want to do the right thing.”
“You’re investing a lot of effort and really trying to make this change.”
Additional tips on giving affirmations:
Affirmations should be framed in terms of “You” and never include the word “I”. This is because “I” reflects your opinion rather than affirms an innate quality or strength in the person e.g. “You clearly have through about this care a lot” vs. “I think you care a lot.”
Focus affirmations on reflecting a person’s efforts rather than their results as a means to encourage and motivate them and promote their self efficacy and confidence.
Avoid using words like good, bad, great etc. when making affirmations as they imply judgement. When such positive words are used they act more like praise rather than affirmations e.g. “It is good you are supporting your animals” (praise) vs. “Caring for your animals is important to you” (affirming).
Focus affirmations on positive aspects as a means to express empathy for what and why they want to change e.g. focusing on their strengths, efforts, who they are as a person/animal owner etc.
REFLECTIONS
Reflections are statements rather than questions, and are based on having listened to what someone said, and making a guess as to what they meant. Often a question statement can be turned into a reflection by removing the inflection at the end and any query words at the beginning. Reflections can be simple or complex. Try to use complex reflections at least half of the time.
The goal:
Remember that what we think a speaker means may not be correct, and that we must ‘hypothesis test’ our thoughts with reflections to ensure common purpose
Reflect more often than you ask questions.
Reflection Examples: Consider the statement: “If I was happier monitoring my animal’s welfare, I would do it”. Possible reflections include:
“You would like to be more confident in monitoring your animal’s welfare.”
“You feel unsure about whether you’re monitoring your animal’s welfare correctly.”
“Observing your animals’ welfare issues is upsetting for you.”
SUMMARIES
A summary is a special type of reflection that brings together content from two or more statements made by someone. They encourage us to listen very carefully to what a person says throughout a session, and, when offered, show a person that you remember and value what they say. They also give the person we are speaking with an opportunity to point out if we have missed something important in the discussion, so they can fill in the gaps.
The goal: listen attentively to a person’s thoughts and feelings throughout, ready to use a ‘basket of reflections’ to thoughtfully collect, link or transition client statements as needed. For example, you may wish to form a collecting summary to bring together all the reasons for change someone has offered in an interaction.
Summary Example:
“So one thing you hope will be different a year from now is that you will have some better buildings on the farm, that will help make your daily routine easier and be more positive for the cows. You’ve been finding it easier to keep on top of the shelter cleaning recently, and you’d like that to continue. You also said you’d like to learn a little more about nutritional feed composition. What else comes to mind when you think of where you’d like things to be a year from now?”
To support development of effective, context appropriate behaviour change strategies, using the Behaviour Change Wheel (BCW) linked with the COM-B model or TDF is recommended. The BCW provides a “systematic and theoretically guided method for identifying the types of interventions and supporting policies that would be expected to be effective for a given behaviour, context, and target individual, group or population” [21]. It was developed based on a synthesis of 19 behaviour change frameworks identified through systematic literature review, and consists of the following three layers [21]:
COM-B components: the six sub-components of COM-B comprise the inner circle, or hub of the wheel, including psychological and physical capability, physical and social opportunity, automatic and reflective motivation.
Intervention Functions: Intervention function refer to broad categories of means by which an intervention can change a behaviour. Nine intervention functions surround the hub and may be suggested depending on the COM-B component targeted for change, including: education, persuasion, incentivisation, coercion, training, restrictions, environmental restructuring, modelling and enablement.
Policy Categories: seven potential policy categories that can support the delivery of these intervention functions comprise the final outer layer, or the rim of the wheel. These include guidelines, environmental/social planning, communication/marketing, legislation, service provision, regulation, and fiscal measures. Policy categories help you identify the types of policy categories you may wish to consider to further influence the drivers of behaviours (COM-B). Recommended policy categories depend on the interventions functions selected. It should be noted that for the purpose of this C4A resource policy categories are not further discussed beyond this learning module because the focus on this resource is to provide guidance for working with communities to change behaviours to improve animal welfare and is not explicitly focused on changing policy.
Figure 24: Behaviour Change Wheel (adapted from [21])
The BCW, COM-B model and TDF are applicable at the level of individuals, groups, sub-populations, and populations, and together they enable users to [21]:
conduct a behavioural analysis of the animal welfare issue to define the issue in behavioural terms and identify desired target behaviour(s)
make a behavioural diagnosis of what needs to change/what to target in an intervention (in terms of COM-B or TDF)
identify the types of interventions most likely to bring about desired change
Once an issue is understood in terms of existing and desired behaviours, and COM-B diagnosis undertaken, the BCW can be used to identify the most appropriate intervention functions related to the COM-B sub-components targeted for change. Using the BCW in this way, enables users to strategically design behaviour change interventions appropriate to a given context using a theory informed, evidence-based method.
Table 1 outlines the linkages between the six COM-B determinants of behaviour and associated BCW intervention functions most likely to be effective in addressing them.
After identifying interventions functions, appropriate behaviour change techniques (BCT) and activities can be identified and may be relevant to more than one intervention function [21]. For example, an outreach campaign may be relevant to both education and persuasion intervention functions, depending on how messages are framed and communicated. Further guidance on this can be found in The Behaviour Change Wheel: Guide to Designing Interventions [21], and in the facilitator resource “Guidance on Identifying Effective Behaviour Change Strategies Based on COM-B Diagnosis.” You can refer to this online resource to learn more about Behaviour Change Techniques (BCT).
The table below provides a summary overview of the BCW intervention function definitions, along with animal welfare related examples, and associated policy categories [21].
Intervention Function (IF) Definition
Examples of Behaviour Change Activities Associated with Interventions Functions
Complimentary Policy Categories
Education Increase knowledge and understanding
• Raise awareness of animal husbandry practices that support positive welfare states • Providing information on animal welfare and disease prevention
Communication/Marketing, Guidelines, Regulation, Legislation, Service Provision
Persuasion Using communication to induce positive or negative feelings or simulate action
• Using influential imagery and/or respected messengers to promote activity
Communication/Marketing Guidelines, Regulation Legislation, Service Provision
Incentivisation Creating an expectation of reward
• Recognizing or rewarding owners of animals exhibiting good welfare states • Animal health service providers certification scheme improve demand and use of quality services
Communication/Marketing Guidelines, Fiscal, Regulation Legislation, Service Provision
Coercion Creating an expectation of punishment or cost
• An animal owning community-based organization adopted bylaws including consequences for members who mistreat their animals
Communication/Marketing, Guidelines, Fiscal Measures, Regulation, Legislation, Service Provision
Training Imparting skills
• Training owners in compassionate handling using positive reinforcement • Training people to make animal welfare friendly equipment using locally available (e.g. harness)
Guidelines, Fiscal Measures, Regulation Legislation, Service Provision
Restriction Using rules to reduce the opportunity to engage in the target behaviour/competing behaviours
• Government transport regulation restricts overloading or enforces using appropriate animal welfare friendly gear • Laws mandating health checks prior to animal sale or transit
Guideline, Regulation, Legislation
Environmental Restructuring Changing the physical or social context
• Post reminders to promote regular adherence to preventative treatment/vaccine schedules • Encouraging farmers cooperatives to create animal shelters at marketplaces to allow animals to rest comfortably after transporting good to market
Modelling Providing an example for people to aspire to or imitate
• Use respected community influencers to demonstrate and inspire adoption of desired behaviour. • Share experiences from successful adopters to others
Communication/Marketing Service Provision
Enablement Increasing means/reducing barriers to increase capability beyond education and training, or opportunity beyond environmental restructuring
• Improving availability of appropriate animal drug treatments • Self-help groups formed and purchase quality feed in bulk to reduce costs to members • Self-esteem building for women or men to care for their animals
Guidelines, Fiscal Measures, Regulation Legislation, Environmental/Social Planning, Service Provision
Table 2: Summary of Intervention Functions with Animal Welfare Related Behaviour Change Activity Examples and Associated Policy Categories
Once interventions functions have been identified, appropriate behaviour change techniques relevant to the intervention functions can be identified. It is not uncommon for behaviour change techniques/activities to be relevant to more than one intervention function. For example, a mass-media campaign be relevant to the intervention’s functions of education and persuasion, depending on how messages are framed and communicated to target audiences [21]. By helping users strategically consider a full range of options and choose the most appropriate based on theory and evidence, the BCW framework can inspire innovation in the strategic identification of behaviour change activities and help mitigate [21]. To support the strategic evaluation of the appropriateness of different interventions in each context, the BCW Guide suggests using the following APEASE criteria: Affordability, Practicability, Effectiveness and Cost-effectiveness, Acceptability, Side-Effects/Safety, and Equity [21].
Authors of the BCW guide importantly note that using the COM-B model and BCW does provide “a detailed blueprint for identifying what works in any given context, but rather provide a theory informed, evidenced-based method for designing context appropriate interventions that are more likely to bring about desired change” [21]. To support development of appropriate behaviour change strategies, the COM-B model and BCW approach have similarly been integrated to the extent feasible within the approaches for working with communities outlined within this C4A guide. In addition to the detailed practical guidance provided in the book the “The Behaviour Change Wheel: Guide to Designing Interventions”, the following C4A facilitator resources provide guidance on using COM-B and the BCW framework to inform behaviour change planning for animal welfare improvement: Behaviour Change/COM-B Diagnosis Community Question Guide, Guidance on Identifying Effective Behaviour Change Strategies Based on COM-B Diagnosis,Behaviour Change Planning Table [21].
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Development Approach, Community Engagement Approach, Societal Outreach and Campaigns Approach
Stages of Behaviour Change: Contemplation Stage
Project Support: Facilitator Resources, Training
Specific Topics: Outreach and Communications; Community Change Agents
When someone is contemplating making a change, there is balance between their reasons for and against change, and people often experience a period characterised by ambivalence where they weigh the advantages and disadvantages of change to help them make a decision. Resolving this ambivalence and tipping the balance in favour of change can be achieved by strengthening a person’s language about their reasons to change, referred to as change talk, and softening their language in favour of the status quo, referred to as sustain talk. The purpose of this facilitator resource is to enable you to recognize and understand the difference between change talk and sustain talk. Your ability to recognize change talk and sustain talk is a necessary first step to enabling you to effectively facilitate conversations about change as needed to evoke and strengthen community members’ rationales for change (change talk), and overcome their arguments for not changing (sustain talk).
Ambivalence
Ambivalence is the state of experiencing conflicting beliefs, feelings or emotions simultaneously, which can stop people’s progress towards change. When someone is in a state of ambivalence, they will often have very good reasons for change and very good reasons against change. The language community members use (change talk and sustain talk) will indicate whether they are in this contemplation, or ambivalent stage of change.
If someone is simply not yet ready to change or does not believe there is a problem, this is different than ambivalence. In such situations you may instead encounter resistance talk, indicating they are in the pre-contemplation stage of change. For example, someone may say “I don’t believe this is a big a problem and don’t see the need to change.”
Change Talk
The acronym “DARN CAT” is useful to use to understand the types of change talk we hear. When someone is preparing to change, “DARN talk occurs, which is described with examples in the table below [111].
Types of Change Language
Change Talk Examples
Desire Statements about preference for change.
“I’d like my animals not to be lame regularly.”“I want to...” “I would like to...” “I wish…“
Ability Statements about capability.
“I guess I could pick out my animal’s feet more regularly.”“I could…”, “I can...”, “I might be able to…“
Reasons Specific arguments for change
“I want my animals to have good welfare.”“I would probably feel less stress if my animal’s welfare improved”“My animal needs to feel better as my family’s livelihood depends on it.”
Need Statements about feeling obliged to change.
“I must spend less time and money seeking treatments from animal health service providers.” “I ought to…”, “I have to…“, “I really should…”
When someone is close to resolving their ambivalencein favour of change, CAT talk appears which is described with examples in the table below.
Types of Change Language
Change Talk Example Statements
Commitment Statements about their willingness to change.
“I have good reasons to improve my animal’s welfare.”“I am going to ... “, “I promise…”, “I intend to... “
Action Statements about their readiness to take action.
“I’m willing to talk to an animal health service provider about this.” “I am ready to ... “ “I will start tomorrow…”
Taking steps Statements about action taken.
“I’ve started attending community meetings where this topic is discussed.”“I actually went out and…”, “This week I started...”
Sustain Talk
Any language that can act to promote change also has an equal and opposite partner in favour of staying the same: sustain talk. You will be able to identify sustain talk when a person verbalizes their reasons not changing. The table below outlines the types of sustain talk with examples.
Types of Sustain Language
Sustain Talk Example Statements
Desire Statements about preference for staying the same/not changing.
“I don’t want to spend that long trying to prevent issues.”
Ability Statements about not having capability.
“I’ve tried, and I don’t think I can check my animal’s feet that often.” “I can’t afford to seek treatment for my animal.”
Reasons Specific arguments against change
“If I try to manage this issue I just create a problem somewhere else.”
Need Statements about not feeling an obligation to change.
“I’ve got to focus my time on other things.”
Commitment Statements about their unwillingness or lack of commitment to change.
“I’m just not going to care for my animal’s feet - that’s final.”
Action Statements about not wanting to take action.
“I’m prepared to accept the risks of keeping my animals this way.”
Taking steps Statements about actions no taken.
“I threw away that information sheet earlier this week.”
A key question of behaviour change practitioners is how to gauge people’s readiness for change. Answering this question requires understanding the process of change that people go through to adopt and sustain a behaviour change. The ‘trans-theoretical’ model (TTM) of behaviour change, also called as ‘stages of change’ model developed by Prochaska and colleagues [27], seeks to help us understand this, suggesting that behaviour change isn’t just a single movement from one way of behaving to another, but rather occurs by moving through sequential stages including the following stages which are further defined below: pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance [27, 29]. The model also recognises the possibility of relapse, and that a person may move back to a former stage at any point.
Figure 25: Stages of Change [30]
Definitions of each stage of change with animal welfare related examples are provided below:
PRE-CONTEMPLATION
People in pre-contemplation are unaware of the issue and therefore are not considering change. They may be unaware or do not believe there is a problem, or may be aware, but ambivalent, unwilling, or unmotivated to engage in change for whatever reason (e.g. resistant, defensive, low self-confidence) [30].
Example: donkey owners who are unaware of the negative issues related to whipping or resist as they do not see the benefits of changing, or they are defensive as they feel wrongly criticised for the behaviour, or they do not think they can change [19].
CONTEMPLATION
People in contemplation is aware of the issue, is thinking about behaviour change, but is not committed to acting. These people might be receptive to feedback and information compared with the previous stage but might be ambivalent about change in relation to how it will benefit them or not; as a result, people might get stuck at this stage for some time.
Example: a person may feel bad about whipping their donkey, and has seen a peer using alternatives to whipping, so is considering their options, but may have mixed feelings about the benefits versus the costs of whipping or not whipping [19].
PREPARATION
People in preparation are motivated and intend to act and have taken steps to prepare to change their behaviour.
Example: donkey owners talked to a friend who does not whip about how they communicate with their donkey or have made unsuccessful attempts to communicate with their donkey in a different way [19].
ACTION
In the action stage, people have moved from an intention to change their behaviour to undertaking effort to enact the new behaviour, experiencing its benefits as well as costs, such as time, effort, money, opinions of others [20].
Example: A donkey cart owner has stopped whipping and is performing a new or existing communication behaviour with the donkey instead [19].
MAINTENANCE
People in maintenance have managed to sustain the behaviour change and are working to avoid relapsing. It typically takes some effort before people continue acting without external prompts or are capable of self-regulating the triggers that may lead to relapse [20].
Example:donkey care owners are now using the voice, or another means to communicate with the donkey instead, and have stopped carrying the whip to ensure they do not relapse to whipping behaviour [19].
RELAPSE / RECURRENCE
Relapse is when a person reverts to the old problem behaviour. Relapse is possible from any stage to any stage at any time, and may be triggered by something (e.g. psychological, or environmental factor etc.).
Example: a donkey cart owner who is at the action stage may revert to the contemplation or pre-contemplation stage relapse when they experience emotional stress such as a customer pressuring them to transport goods quickly or they won’t do business with them, which might trigger the individual to relapse to whipping behaviour [19].
The stages of change outlined by the TTM help identify an individual’s readiness for changing their current behaviour by categorizing target groups depending on their state of preparedness for change. “The early stages change relate to an intention to change (i.e. pre-contemplation, contemplation and preparation) whereas the later stages focus on the actual behaviour change (i.e. action, maintenance) [27]. “The strengths of the TTM is that it provides a framework that can be used to proactively move an individual through the stages towards sustained behaviour change, rather than assuming behaviour change is one single moment or event. It provides processes to understand and assist the individual at each stage of change to tailor the intervention” [19]. By helping users understand what stage of behaviour change people are in, and how best to support their contributed change process through it, the TTM enables behaviour change practitioners to tailor their engagement for greatest effectiveness.
Specific Topics: Outreach and Communications; Community Change Agents
Much of the work of community facilitators relies on their ability to effectively facilitate conversations and motivate communities to adopt desired change. A guided conversational facilitation technique for engaging stakeholders, clarifying their strengths and aspirations, evoking their own motivations for change, and promoting their autonomy in decision making is called Motivational Interviewing (MI). This facilitator resource outlines the spirit, processes and key principles of MI ensure conversations about change are effectively facilitated and that communities’ preferences, needs and values remain at the heart of all conversations.
The Spirit of Facilitating Conversations about Change
In order to be effective in facilitating conversations about change, it is first necessary to have the right mind-set or way of being, referred to a “spirit” in MI. The following section outlines the key elements of the spirit of MI which are required to effectively facilitating conversations about change, which are represented by the acronym “CAPE” [57]:
Compassion: Actively promoting community members’ welfare and needs.
Acceptance: Viewing your community members’ as people with absolute worth and autonomy, and engaging with empathy and affirmations.
Partnership: Viewing your interaction with community members as an active collaboration between experts.
Evocation: Viewing community members as people with their own good reasons and strength to change. Your role as a community facilitator is to guide them there.
It is important to consciously strive to embody this spirit and draw upon these four elements whenever facilitating conversations about change with community members.
Key Principles of Facilitating Conversations about Change
In addition to embodying the element of spirit, it is important to follow the four guiding principles below to effectively facilitate conversations about change [57, 112]:
Listen with empathy: Effective listening skills are essential to understand what will motivate a person to change, as well as the pros and cons of their situation. Seek to understand their values, needs, abilities, motivations, and potential barriers to changing their behaviour, and communicate respect and acceptance of where the person is in their change process.
Understand a person’s motivations: It is a person’s own reasons for change, rather than the community facilitators, that will ultimately result in behaviour change. By approaching a person’s interests, concerns and values with curiosity and openly exploring their motivations for change, community facilitators will get a better understanding of community members’ motivations and potential barriers to change.
Empower the person: Empowering people involves exploring their own ideas about how they can make changes to improve their animal’s welfare and drawing on their personal knowledge about what has succeeded in the past. It is the role of the community facilitator to elicit hope and support and encourage a person’s belief in the possibility of change, and their capacity to reach their goals. Work with them to identify achievable steps towards change an
Resist the righting reflex: The righting reflex describes the common urge amongst community workers to fix what is wrong (with a person, situation, or animal). It involves giving unsolicited advice e.g. “you should…”, or advice without eliciting more about the person’s perspective. At its core, it is a helping response driven by a desire to be of service, promote positive change, and support others; however it is often unhelpful in situations where people are uncertain about changing. When we give in to the righting reflecting, we often inadvertently reinforce a person’s argument to maintain the status quo. This is because most people resist persuasion when they are uncertain about change, and instead respond by recalling their reasons for maintaining the behaviour. Community facilitator’s ability to suppress their initial righting reflex is essential enabling them to explore and evoke a person’s own motivations for change.
Guidance on Providing Advice and Feedback: Ask-Offer-Ask
It is important to always remember that community members have the most expertise in their lived experience, and that any engagement with them needs to be in the spirit of partnership (vs. acting like the expert or parent or in their lives). When providing information, advice or feedback to support others’ change process and avoid falling into the unhelpful righting reflex trap, it is recommended to use the Ask-Offer-Ask model as described below:
Before providing your advice, information or feedback to community members, first ASK what they already know or what do they want to know about? e.g. “You know your situation best, how are you managing this issue right now?”, What are your thoughts on…? “What you know about….?”, “What would you like to know about?”, “Is there any information I can help you with?”, “What might be helpful?”
Exploring prior knowledge and what community members are interested in knowing more about shows respect for community members as experts on themselves. Further, it avoids telling them what they already know, which can also save time. Asking about what they’re interested to know helps you find out what they most need and want to know. You can then use reflections to show you have listened to what they have said before moving on to offering your expertise.
Ask permission to offer your advice, only then OFFER your advice/information, suggestion e.g. “Would it be alright if we talked about…?”, “I have some ideas about…, would you be happy for me to share them?”, “Would you like to know about…?”
Consider the following when offering your expertise:
Offer your input in a neutral way, and avoid scolding, instructing, telling them what to do, giving long lectures, or saying things like “you should…”.
Prioritize what you offer: what does the person most want/need to know? Start with what they want to know. Even if you have information you want to share, but don’t lead with what you think is most important.
Be clear: avoid jargon and use everyday language
Offer small amounts of information/advice and then check how it is received, making sure to provide them with time to reflect.
Support their personal choice/ agency: Acknowledge people’s freedom to disagree or ignore your input. Giving them the choice not to take your advice provides them with freedom and autonomy, and they are in turn more likely to listen and take your advice. e.g. “You might disagree with this idea”, “…but, of course it’s up to you…”, “I don’t know whether this is relevant to your situation…”, “This may or may not interest you…”, “I wonder what you will think of this…?”
Asking permission shows respect and increases their willingness to hear your thoughts/advice/information/feedback. Collaboration and shared focus are key.
Once you have provided advice or information, ASK community members what they think about it and what it means to them by:
Using open questions e.g. “What do you think?”, “What does that mean to you?”, “What are your thoughts on this?”, “How does that sit with your knowledge of this?”
Use reflections to reflect back the reaction you observed in them
Allow them time to process and respond to the information.
Asking what community members think of your input respects them as experts on activating their change. It also will enable you to check their understanding, identify potential needs for further discussion, or enable you to adapt your engagement as needed to further support their change process.
To effectively provide advice and overcome our righting reflex requires skills in active listening and empathy. Refer to the facilitator resource Essential Communication Skills for Promoting Behaviour Change for guidance on active listening and empathy.
The Process for Facilitating Conversations about Change
In addition to having the right mind-set or spirit and communication skills to facilitate conversations about change, you also need to know how to go about it. The following section outlines the four processes or sequential steps to follow to facilitate conversations about change[57]. However, it should be noted, that while these processes are generally followed in the order shown, in the course of a conversation, the processes are not necessarily fixed and any stage might recur, or the steps might overlap and flow into each other.
Step 1 - Engage: during this step, the goal is to create a collaborative working relationship with community members based on mutual trust and respect. To do this, community members need to feel that they are comfortably and actively participating in the discussion.
During the engage process, focus on:
Understanding why community members want to work with you. What do they want?
Understanding how important community members’ goals for their animals’ welfare may be. What are their challenges and motivators for improving animal welfare issue(s)?
Being welcoming, empathetic, and understanding.
Establish and explore expectations around how community members think you can help.
Offering hope, and presenting a positive, honest picture of possible changes.
Consider the following questions to support your effectiveness in having conversations seeking to engage community members in a collaborative working relationship:
How comfortable is this person talking to me?
How supportive and helpful am I being?
Do I understand this person's perspective and concerns?
How comfortable do I feel in this conversation?
Does this feel like a collaborative interaction?
Step 2 - Focus: during this step, the goal is to build a conversation that is purposefully moving towards change. Ensure consistency between your ideas and those of community members in terms by finding one (or more) goals or outcomes that create a direction that you and community member(s) agree on. The following three elements can help bring about focus, and may influence one another:
Community members may have problems they are interested in discussing with you
The context can inform the topic of focus e.g. veterinary visit, welfare inspection
Your own expertise may similarly provide insights on potential topics of focus as while community members may have ideas of their own, others may become apparent to you in course of your discussion with them.
Consider the following questions to support your effectiveness in having conversations with community members to bring about focus in goals for working together:
Do I have different aspirations for change for this person?
What goals for change does this person really have?
Are we working together for a common purpose?
Does it feel like we are moving together, not in a different direction?
Do I have a clear sense of where we are going?
Step 3 - Evoke: the goal of this step is to elicit community members’ own motivation to change whereby they talk themselves into change. To do this requires learning to recognise and evoke change talk, and strengthen it when it occurs (refer to facilitator resources 3. Guidance on Listening for Change Talk, and 2c. Key Communication Skills for further guidance)
Examples of change-oriented questions related to level of importance or confidence that can help evoke change talk include, but are not limited to:
If you could magically change one thing right now by snapping your fingers, what would it be? How could you do it?
What have you achieved so far?
How important is it for you to….?
What are the down sides of how things are now?
If you choose to continue on without making a change, how do you think your life might look like this time next year?
How could you implement this change?
What’s the worst thing that could happen if you make this change?
What’s the best possible outcome?
Use the following tips to strengthen change talk once you hear it:
Consider the following questions to support your effectiveness in having conversations seeking to evoke community members’ own reasons for change:
Is my righting reflex being activated and causing me to be the one arguing for change?
Is their reluctance to change more about lack of confidence or that they don’t feel making a change is important?
What arguments for change am I hearing?
Am I directing the conversation too far or fast in a particular direction?
What are this person's own reasons for change?
Step 4 - Plan: the goal of conversations in this step is to have conversations about action, whilst carefully promoting community members’ autonomy and decision making. The planning step occurs when community members begin thinking and talking more about how they could change and when, and less about why and whether to change, for example, when community members:
Consider the following questions to support your effectiveness in having conversations with community members about planning for change:
What would be a reasonable next step towards change?
Am I remembering to evoke rather than prescribe a plan?
What would help this person move forward?
Am I offering needed information or advice with permission?
Am I retaining a sense of quiet curiosity about what will work best for the person?
Facilitating Conversations about Change with Groups instead of Individuals
The guidance outlined above applies when working with individuals or groups. However, when having conversations with groups of community members, applying MI’s spirit, principles process, and key communication skills (discussed in the facilitator resource Essential Communication Skills for Promoting Behaviour Change) can be further tailored to support group discussions in the following ways:
Affirm peoples' efforts to come together
Giving people a chance to have a choice (listening to them)
Reflect change talk as people contribute back to the wider group to inspire more collective change talk
Ask permission to give information
Evoke Questions from the group
Draw upon their expertise and experiences
Acknowledge their choices/agency/autonomy
Summarize the group consensus
Support the group to prioritize options and choices
General Best Practices and Rules of Thumb
Key best practices and rules of thumb to remember about the spirit, principles, and process of facilitating conversations about change (MI) include:
Effective Way of Being(MI consistent - DO)
Infective Way of Being(MI inconsistent - AVOID)
I have some expertise, and community members are the experts of themselves.
I am the expert on how and why community members’ should change.
I find out what information community members want and need.
I collect information about problems.
I match information to client needs and strengths.
I rectify gaps in knowledge.
Community members can tell me what kind of information is helpful.
Frightening information can be helpful.
Advice that champions community members’ needs and autonomy can be helpful
I just need to tell them clearly what to do.
Avoid the following common pit-falls in facilitating conversations about change:
Assuming providing our expertise will fix community members’ problems by providing our expertise and assuming this will solve the problem.
Overestimating how much information and advice communities need.
Thinking that frightening information is helpful and will motivate people to change.
Facilitating conversations about change (MI) is about evoking peoples' own motivations for change rather than trying to instil it.
Have interest in, and make an effort to understand the internal perspective of community members with whom you engage.
The use of MI techniques outlined in this resource are done 'for' and 'with' people.
Actively prioritise community members’ needs and promote their well-being. Improving animal welfare should not come at the expense of community members’ needs or well-being but rather be aligned with them.
Value and trust in the inherent potential and worth of community members with whom you interact.
Seek to acknowledge the efforts and strengths of community members.
Honour and respect community members’ autonomy, and their right and capability to direct their own lives, learning, motivation and behaviour based on their understanding of their own situations.
When seeking to support human behaviour change, the following helpful tips and recommended ethical principles have been adapted for consideration throughout any community animal welfare intervention project [20]:
1. Behaviour change needs to be owned
The key in facilitating behaviour change is recognizing that ultimately it is the decision of everyone to adopt desired behaviours, and thus is it important they take ownership of the change process for behaviour change to be adopted and sustained. It is the role of the community facilitator believe in communities’ innate potential to make changes, including the ability to analyse their situations and conditions that affect their lives and the lives of their animals. Designing the behaviour change process in a participatory and empowering manner is critical to supporting people’s motivation throughout the behaviour change process.
2. Respect People’s Right to Choose
Projects must always respect individuals’ right to choose (or not) to adopt a particular behaviour (unless it harms or endangers others) and must consider the risks early adopters may face (e.g. disapproval of others in their household/community, incurring initial financial or time-related costs).
3. Promote Ethical Change
Only seek to change existing behaviours if such change:
Has benefits which are perceived by the targeted community members to outweigh the potential costs/losses caused by changing existing behaviours, customs, and traditions.
Are proven to effectively address the problems faced by the targeted animal owning community.
Are supported by the key stakeholders (such as civil society representatives, ministries)
4. Practices to Avoid
Avoid changing a behaviour without trying to understand it first e.g., arriving at a community with a plan to change a given behaviour(s) without trying to first understand why people practice it, why they cannot/ do not change it.
Avoid using excessive social pressure or victimizing e.g. coercing instead of motivating people; labelling individuals as a bad animal owners or carers/cruel people when they do not follow certain practices while not reflecting on their ability to do so.
Avoid promising more than the behaviour can deliver e.g. exaggerating the real benefits that a behaviour can deliver or downplaying its costs (required time, effort, disapproval of others)
Avoid promoting a behaviour with unproved effectiveness e.g. asking people to spend their time, effort, or resources on practicing a behaviour (i.e. certain animal husbandry and management practices) for which there is no strong evidence of effectiveness).
Avoid Creating demand without adequate supply e.g. encouraging people to use animal related resources or services which are hard to access (i.e. due to costs, poor availability, distance etc.) without helping to improve access.
Avoid ignoring the already present positive behaviours e.g. introducing new practices without assessing and taking advantage of the existing positive behaviours, beliefs, and know-how
Avoid culturally insensitive interventions
5. Behaviour change is a process
behaviour change is not immediate, nor necessarily linear, but rather a process in which a person will go through a series of steps as their awareness, acceptance, and motivation to change and act is unlocked. It is important to be listening and gauging what stage of change people are in so you can tailor your engagement appropriately and effectively [25]. If for example someone is in pre-contemplation, and you try to work with them to solution the problem, they may withdraw or lose interest as they are not yet aware or may not believe there is a problem.
6. Define the animal welfare problem in specific human behaviour terms
A helpful tip for animal welfare improvement projects is to frame the animal welfare issue in terms of the human behaviour change desired. It is important to recognize that improving animal welfare may require changing the behaviours of more than just animal owning communities, but also those of others’ who either influence animal welfare directly, or influence animal owning communities’ adoption of desired behaviours such as animal health and resource providers. Crafting behaviour change statements using the following considerations is therefore important as it will ensure all parties are clear on who needs to change, and what change is desired, and help inform more effective planning and monitoring of change.
Behaviour change statements should identity:
Whose behaviour needs to change
What is the desired behaviour they will adopt (using a present tense action verb)
Relevant details to achieving desired outcome of behaviour (e.g. frequency, quantity, duration, location, with whom etc.).
In addition, identified behaviours should be stated as specific as possible (non-divisible), and reflect the end-state behaviour desired [31].
Non-divisible behaviours refer to actions which cannot be divided or broken down into further actions. For example, “prevent heat stress” is divisible because it could be further divided into a variety of behaviours such as providing shade, providing water, or providing periods of rest when animal is exposed to high temperature conditions at length. Because barriers to adoption are often behaviour specific, ensuring behaviours are non-divisible will enable you to investigate and target the appropriate barriers which support achievement of desired outcomes [32].
End state behaviour refers to a behaviour that produces the desired outcome [31]. To determine whether a behaviour is end state, simply ask “will a person engaging in this behaviour produce the desired outcome, or do they need to do something else before the desired outcome can be achieved?” [31]. For example, “grow nutritional animal feed” is not an end state behaviour because doing this alone does not ensure animals are actually fed. An alternative end state behaviour would be “nutritional animal feed is provided in sufficient quantities to animals on a daily basis”.
7. Understand Behaviour within the Broader Context
People’s behaviour is shaped by their broader external environment (e.g. employment opportunities, culture, access and availability of resources and services, vulnerability to external shocks such as drought or pests etc.). These external factors can act as either an enabling factor/motivator or barrier to behaviour change. Without observing and seeking to understand the behaviour and variety of factors which influence it, it will be challenging to understand what needs to change for desired behaviours to be adopted and sustained.
8. Understand Intersectionality in the Context of Desired Behaviours
Intersectionality refers to the overlapping social categorisations and identities people hold which can combine to create overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage for them e.g. gender, race, class, social status, migratory status etc. It is important to understand how these social categorisations and identities can place certain groups within animal owning communities at a greater disadvantage. Intersectionality affects people’s lived experiences, shapes the development of their frame of reference for understanding the world, and can influence their capability, opportunity, or motivation to change their behaviour to improve animal welfare. It is therefore important to use an intersectional lens when seeking to support behaviour change, as understanding what these overlapping social categorizations are, how they interact to motivate or constrain people’s behaviours can be critical to the success of any behaviour change project [33].
Example of Intersectionality in the Animal Welfare Context
The social characteristics and attributes of animal owning community members may limit their access and availability of resources and services needed to meet the welfare needs of their animals’ when these characteristics cause them to be marginalized or discriminated against. For example, some groups’ ability to care for their animals may be hindered due to discrimination they face from animal service providers as a result of their social status. For example, equid owning communities of lower status castes in India report that animal health service providers and government officials do not prioritize their needs when it comes to addressing their animals' welfare issues, and are slow to respond to their requests for services. While this is a challenge for men in these communities, if the service seeker is also female, it can be more difficult for her to seek animal related services due to societal gender norms limiting women's income generation opportunities and household decision making power compared to men. In this example, a woman's caste and gender may intersect to decrease her ability to access services to meet her animals’ welfare needs in comparison with males in the same situation.
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Development Approach, Community Engagement Approach
Behavioural Drivers (COM-B): Motivation
Stages of Behaviour Change: Pre-contemplation Stage, Contemplation Stage
Project Support: Facilitator Resources, Training
Specific Topics: Outreach and Communications; Community Change Agents
How community facilitators respond to community members’ resistance to change is a big determining factor in the outcome of their interactions with them, and the ability to help community members move toward behaviour change[113]. This resource outlines guidance for overcoming resistance to change you may encounter amongst community members.
What is Resistance?
Resistance is what happens when we expect or push for change when community members are not ready for that change. It often reflects conscious or unconscious defences against change. While the reasons community members are not ready to change in the way we desire may not be clear to us or to community members, they exist and ignoring them gets us nowhere.
Signs of resistance may include:
Community members may interrupt you.
Community members may seem distracted (looking at watch, phone, etc.).
Community members may get defensive.
Types of Resistance
The manifestations of resistance to change typically fall into two categories: sustain talk (a manifestation of ambivalence) and discord, and different strategies may need to be adopted depending on which of these manifestations you encounter. These two types of resistance and tips for dealing with are discussed below:
DISCORD: Discord refers to statements from community members about the intervention process or relationship to the community facilitator, particularly the direction in which community members perceive things are going [57]. This often feels like resistance but actually discord which is related to a lack of trust/respect/empathy/power sharing in the relationship, which can result in the break down in the relationship and sense of partnership. When people don’t believe we really value their opinions or experiences, and/or if they feel you are trying to tell them or force them to change or acting like an expert without understanding their life, they will either resist you, resent you, or both. As a result, they will become more motivated to defend their position. Examples of comments indicating there is discord: “You don’t understand.”, “You can’t help me.”
SUSTAIN TALK: Sustain talk represents the other side of a person's ambivalence about changing. It can be an expression of a community member’s desire for the way things are, feeling unable to change, having reasons for keeping things the same or needing to keep things the way they are.
Remember that every behaviour has a positive intention, it may not just be positive from your perspective. Thus, it is important to believe the best in others and ensure that you have a positive intention.
Avoid Arguments and Pushing Back
Respect the resistance and roll with it, don’t confront it directly and avoid arguing for change as thisusually causes community members to keep voicing sustain talk (the reasons not to change).[113], and can undermine interpersonal communication and relationships (e.g. refer to facilitator resource Essential Communication Skills for Promoting Behaviour Changefor information on ego states and transactional analysis).
Avoid the righting reflex:
Resist the urge to provide unsolicited advice or guidance and telling people what to do to improve their situation as this often times result in discord. Acknowledge that the righting reflex is present and ask yourself to override it.
Talk less and listen more using active listening skills (refer to facilitator resource: Essential Communication Skills for Facilitating Behaviour Change for additional guidance).
If someone hasn’t volunteered to be part of a conversation about change or doesn’t want to change or aren’t open to making suggestions, or if you see an immediate welfare issue you feel you need to mention you can still share your concerns in a spirit of partnership using the Ask-Offer-Ask model of providing feedback (refer to Guidance on Providing Advice and Feedback: Ask-Offer-Ask within the facilitator resource 4. Guidance on Facilitating Conversations for Change). For example: Don’t say you shouldn’t do this, you need to change etc., and instead use the ask-offer-ask model:
Ask - May I share my concerns about this issue/behaviour?
Offer - My concern is that this puts you/your animal at risk of…because
Ask – What do you think about my concerns?
Sometimes you may have to apologize or shift the conversation. for example, if you find people responding in a way indicating they may be feeling invalidated, resistant, or withdrawing as a result of your attempts to provide unsolicited advice, and you have the opportunity to catch it quickly in the moment, you can backtrack and say, “I’m sorry, I realize you didn’t ask for my opinion, what do you think about …” [113].
TIPS FOR DEALING WITH SUSTAIN TALK
Roll with Resistance: When you encounter community members who are resistant to change and expressing a lot of sustain talk, it is helpful to roll with this resistance rather than try to fight or debate it, as this can further cement their unwillingness to change [113, 57].
Evoke Change Talk: Focus on eliciting community members’ consideration of, motivation for, or commitment to change, also referred to as change talk(refer to facilitator resourceGuidance on Listening for Change Talkfor further guidance). You can do this by:
Reflect on the problem using summaries as a means to show empathy and make the person feel they are heard which will build rapport.
Actively listen for a person’s positive strengths, skills, values, efforts, accomplishments, aspirations and traits, and to reflect those back to them using affirmations to shift focus away from the negative and focus on positive characteristics or the person as a means to build rapport, motivate and inspire their own belief in self and the possibility for change.
If they say, “maybe I could do something” you can respond by asking whether it would be possible to discuss this next time you meet to give them more time to process.
Use a change scale/ruler (e.g. readiness for, confidence to, importance of change) and discuss what would move them up the scale.
Reflect back “a part of you is interested….what is it that makes you curious about or what would be helpful towards taking a step in the future?”
Ask what would be helpful for them
Emphasize Choice and Control [114, 57]: Embody the spirit of working in partnership with communities, by emphasizing the client's choice and control (autonomy) can help minimize resistance and move the conversation away from sustain talk. This means explicitly stating something along the lines of "It really is your choice what you will do about _______" or “Ultimately it is your choice, and I’m happy to work with you on this, perhaps we can talk about this next time we see each other?”
Shift Focus [114, 57]: when talking about an issue becomes counterproductive you can respond by shifting the conversation away from what seems to be a stumbling block to progress (shifting focus). This means changing the subject. An example of shifting focus might sound like "That doesn't seem like a problem to you right now. What are some of the things you're dealing with that you feel are a challenge?" The facilitator resource Example of Five Domains of Animal Welfare for Donkeys Linked with Human Behaviours provides guidance on how you can use the five domains of animal welfare framework linked with human behaviours to shift focus to identifying behaviours people can enact to improve their animal’s welfare when they are resistant or unable to adopt desired behaviours.
Develop Discrepancy[113]: change won’t occur without discrepancy. It allows the client to realize their current behaviour isn’t leading to their desired goal and to be more open to change.
Help community members define their most important goals for their animals’ welfare
Help community members see that their current behaviours don’t align with their ultimate goals that are important/valuable.
Help community members see the difference between their core values and their behaviour(s).
Create gap between where community members are and where they want to be.
Promote community members' belief in their ability to do what is needed to change.
Focus on past successes and skills and strengths community members have or can easily learn.
Promote self-esteem and build confidence.
TECHNIQUES FOR EVOKING CHANGE TALK [57, 112]:
Ask Evocative Questions: Ask an open question which you believe the person will respond to with change talk. The simplest and most direct way to elicit change talk is by asking a series of targeted questions from the following four categories:
Disadvantages of the status quo e.g. “What difficulties have resulted from not providing your animal with timely medical care? What worries you about your animals’ welfare?”
Advantages of change e.g. “What do you think life would be like, or what do you think would be different, for you and your animals if you did make a change and resolve this animal welfare issue?”, “What are the advantages of feeding your animal appropriate quality and quantities of feed?”
Optimism for change e.g. “When have you made a significant change in your animal’s welfare before? How did you do it?”, “What strengths do you have that would help you to improve your animal’s welfare?”
Intention to change e.g. “In what ways do you want your animals’ welfare to be different five years from now?”, “Forget about how you would achieve it for a moment, if you could do anything, what would you change about your animal’s welfare?”
Alternatively, if you are short on time, a quick method of drawing out ‘change talk’ is to use an ‘importance ruler’ (refer to change ruler below).
Use Change Rulers: Ask: “On a scale from 1 to 10, how important is it to you to change [the specific target behaviour] where 1 is not at all important, and a 10 is extremely important?” Follow up: “And why are you at [xxx] and not [a lower number than stated]?”. “What might happen that could move you from [xxx] to [a higher number]?” or “What would move you up the scale?” Alternatively, instead of importance, you could ask in terms of their confidence to make the change if they decided to do so, or their readiness to change e.g. on a scale of 0-10, with zero being I’m not ready to change, and 10 being ready to change.
If respondent gives you a zero, use reflections to reflect their sentiment back e.g. “at this time, you don’t feel like the right time to make this change YET.”
If respondent gives you a low number, use open ended question to ask them why they scored it 1 or 2 and not a zero as this can evoke more change talk about the part of them that is wanting to change.
If respondent provides a low number, an open ended question asking “what would it take to move that from a 5-7” can also get them thinking about strategies for how they could make this change, which can help boost their confidence in their ability to attempt change.
Explore Decisional Balance: Ask for the pros and cons of both changing and staying the same.
Good Things/Not-‐So-‐Good Things: Ask about the positives and negatives of the behaviour targeted for change.
Ask for Elaboration/Examples: When a change talk theme emerges, ask for more details. “In what ways?” “Tell me more?” “What does that look like?” “When was the last time that happened?”
Look Back: Ask about a time before the target behaviour emerged. How were things better, different?
Look Forward: Ask what may happen if things continue as they are (status quo). Try the miracle question: If you were 100% successful in making the changes you want, what would be different? How would you like your life to be five years from now?
Query Extremes: What are the worst things that might happen if you don’t make this change? What are the best things that might happen if you do make this change?
Explore Goals and Values: Ask about what their guiding values are, or refer back to previous conversations with the person where they provided an indication of their guiding values. What do they want in life? Using a values card sort activity can be helpful here. Ask how the continuation of target behaviour fits in with the person’s goals or values. Does it help realize an important goal or value, interfere with it, or is it irrelevant?
Come Alongside: Explicitly side with the negative (status quo) side of ambivalence. “Perhaps [xxx] is so important to you, that you won’t change no matter what the cost.”
![Figure 12: The "Five Domains" model for assessing animal welfare [2]](http://communitiesforanimals.thebrooke.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/A1-Welfare-English-version.png)
![Figure 13: Examples of positive and negative experiences within the Five Domains framework [7]](http://communitiesforanimals.thebrooke.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/A3-Domains-Positive-and-Negative-English-ver.png)
![Figure 21: Visualizing the concept of One Health [12]](http://communitiesforanimals.thebrooke.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/A12-OneHealth-Complete-400x374.png)
![Figure 22: Example of a personal frame of reference that can shape a person’s behaviour
(Adapted from [18])](http://communitiesforanimals.thebrooke.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/A13-Window-Complete.png)
![Figure 23: COM-B Model/System of Behaviour (adapted from [21])](http://communitiesforanimals.thebrooke.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/A15-Model-Complete-4.png)
![Figure 24: Behaviour Change Wheel
(adapted from [21])](http://communitiesforanimals.thebrooke.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/A16-Focus-Wheel-Complete-1.png)
![Table 1: COM-B Components Linked to Behaviour Change Wheel Intervention Functions
(adapted from: [21, 25])](http://communitiesforanimals.thebrooke.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/A17-Table-Complete.png)
![Figure 25: Stages of Change [30]](http://communitiesforanimals.thebrooke.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/A18-Change-Complete.png)
