 Community Coaching for Planning, Action, and Evaluation A CYFERnet-Community Online Workshop May 18, 2011 Laura Laumatia University of Idaho Susan Jakes & Autumn Guin NC State University

Agenda  Introductions  Overview of Community Coaching  Program Planning and Evaluation: Traditional vs. Community Coaching Lens  Community Reflection Tool  Merging community reflection with program and evaluation processes

Where are you?  East  Central  Mountain  Pacific  Outside the U.S.

Familiarity with Community Coaching  I understand the major concepts and use it in my work  I understand the major concepts but have never used it  I’ve heard of it  I’ve never heard of it

How many CYFERnet Community Coaching workshops have you attended?  One  Two  Three  Four

What is coaching?  We are all familiar with the concept of coaching.  A coach is someone who__________.

A Community Coach…  is a guide who supports communities and organizations in identifying and achieving their goals.

A story  Think about the definition of a coach as a guide who supports communities and organizations in identifying and achieving their goals.  Identify some examples in your own practice or working with others where you have done or seen coaching in action.  Share a very specific story of a time when you used coaching to help a community or organization build capacity.  What made coaching work in that setting?  What circumstances, factors, conditions, etc. contributed to the success?  What would it look like if it worked even better? Who would need to be involved, how?

Roles in Supporting Change Processes

Why coaching  Even the most talented have a coach  Coaching brings out the talents within  Coaching is information put into practice  Coaching embraces teams with high diversity  Reflects current Community Dev. practice

The New Community Development

How has your work changed in the past several years in relation to this new paradigm for community development?

The 6 Rs of coaching

Readiness  Assessment of past work  Assessment of strengths and dreams  Assessment of existing networks and connections  Exploration of accomplishments and possibilities

Relationships  Take network analysis to next level to look at qualities and potentials of relationships  Potentials for expansion and strengthening  Capacity for collaboration and collective action

Reflection  Looking inward at group process  Exploring ways to improve decision making and results  Creating an environment of openness  Celebrating accomplishments

Results  Focus is on creating change  Measures of success  What is working and what is not  Reconnecting to mission and vision  Recommitting to purpose and effort

Reach  2 ways to expand reach:  Reach to greater goals than once though possible.  Are we dreaming big enough?  Do we need new thinking and strategies to get us there?  Reach further into the community  Who else needs to be at the table?  Who might understand this issue better than us?  Who have we not involved?

Resiliency  Encouraging group practice to find answers within themselves  Building in leadership renewal strategies  Challenging group to dig deeper and innovate more  Shifting reliance from coach

Fill in the Blanks Typical Program Development

Define the Problem Set Goals Design Activities Implementation Evaluation & Analysis

ReadinessRelationshipsReflectionResultsReachResilienceReadinessRelationshipsReflectionResultsReachResilience Capturing & Telling the Story ReadinessRelationshipsReflectionResultsReachResilienceReadinessRelationshipsReflectionResultsReachResilienceReadinessRelationshipsReflectionResultsReachResilience Coming Together Discovering & Dreaming Collaborative Action Designing a Plan for Change Community Coaching Developmental Model

Community River of Life  Adapted from “Training for Transformation: A Handbook for Community Workers.” (1989) A. Hope and S. Timmel, by Nina Wallerstein, as outlined in “Community Organizing for Healthier Communities Train the Trainers Manual (1994).  Purpose: Helps community members reflect on forces and influences that have shaped their community. Creates a shared understanding of community history and purpose.

Steps:  Explain to the group that the river is a very meaningful symbol in many cultures, and most people find it quite natural and stimulating to think of their community strengths and challenges in terms of a river. Participants are asked to use the symbol of the river to reflect on their community’s history and journey to where it is today.  Break groups into 3-4 people.  Teams may use other metaphors for their journey that are more meaningful if they wish.  Draw the river of life from a historic perspective as far back as they can remember, or from what they know from oral and other historical accounts. Talk about challenges and obstacles as well as strengths and opportunities.  Allow at least 30 minutes for this activity, and encourage the groups to use various colors and materials to construct their river.

Debrief  At the end, ask each group to share their river with the group. At the end, bring everyone together and ask them to respond to the following type of questions:  What stood at for you as you saw your own and other’s community river of life?  What sort of emotions stood out for you as you went through the stages of your community’s history?  What sort of similarities and differences did you see between communities?  How can you use this information to strengthen your community’s journey to _____?

River of Life Example

Think about it…  What does the River of Life Activity tell about the way a community moves together toward a goal?  Can you identify where each of the 6R’s show up in the River of Life Activity?

Working within boundaries…  Is it possible to fit what we discovered from the River of Life Activity into a Program Logic Model?

An Experiment

Beyond boundaries  What other tools can we tie to the River of Life Activity to create a program plan?  Write your answers in the chat box.

 Wrap Up – Questions?