Workshop, Program, & Curriculum Design Archives - Page 4 of 7

24 Jul, 2019

Try This: Find Your Unlikely Allies

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T20:43:06-04:00July 24th, 2019|Categories: Workshop, Program, & Curriculum Design|Tags: Human Centered Design, Try This|0 Comments

It might seem random, but it just might work.

July is Minority Mental Health Month, a time to bring awareness to the importance of achieving mental health and wellness in communities of color, along with addressing barriers that prevent people of color from seeking and remaining in care.

Let’s say you’re an organization interested in developing an awareness campaign related to positive mental health and wellness outcomes in communities of color.

Your organization’s expertise rests on the mental health side, but you identify potential barriers, based on feedback from your program participants, that may become a barrier to someone with a diagnosed or undiagnosed mental health issue staying in care.

When we’re not feeling at our best, many aspects of our lives take a dive. One of which is oral health. We don’t typically connect oral health to mental health, but some mental health conditions like dementia and schizophrenia have increased decay and gum disease as a consequence of bacterial infection rather than erosion, attrition, or abrasion. Also, people experiencing stress or anxiety may also experience higher levels of bruxism (teeth grinding), temporomandibular joint disfunction (TMJ), and gum disease due to life stressors.

Partnering with an oral health organization or your local dentist office to address this may sound like a completely random campaign, but it may be a powerful campaign just off the strength of how random it sounds.

Many nonprofits and community groups like to conduct SWOT analysis. If you’re not familiar with the practice, it’s a strategic way to identify what’s a strength, weakness, opportunity or threat to the organization, both internally and externally. One perceived weakness or threat is recognizing that there are others who have your characteristics, think the way you think, and are “already doing the work”.

That may be true. But how can this move from being a weakness or threat to being a strength or opportunity?

My suggestion: Find your unlikely allies.

An unlikely ally is someone that, on the surface, we don’t think can be connected to our cause, but they may have a particular strength we benefit from once we do a deeper dive into what their skills are and how we can marry them to our own.

While there may be others already doing the work, there’s a specific way you do the work that makes you stand out. Your unique perspective can be the deciding factor on how many people get onboard with your program, strategy or campaign.

Plus, when you think beyond the people and groups closest to you and start to identify the outlier people and groups who have different skillsets that you can benefit from, it brings you to the top.

This activity is ideal for:

Anyone interested in creating a program, strategy campaign or initiative on a larger scale

Here’s what you need:

Sheets of paper or an erasable whiteboard
Post-it notes
Writing utensils (pens, pencils, markers, or dry erase markers)

The steps:

(more…)

19 Jun, 2019

Try This: Context vs Content

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T20:39:50-04:00June 19th, 2019|Categories: Workshop, Program, & Curriculum Design|Tags: Facilitation, Try This, Workshops|0 Comments

Like a glass of water, the content of your workshop is contained within the context.

Next week, I’ll be facilitating a presentation and discussion on the reproductive justice framework for a client organization that provides health services to underserved individuals and their families along with partnering with community-based organizations and government agencies.

The client’s project is a learning collaborative that brings together local healthcare providers to adopt best practices for the provision of contraception within primary care, post-abortion, and postpartum settings.

It’s been a while since I’ve presented on RJ for an audience like this, and I’m pretty excited about it. So much so, that it’s reminded me of my goal for creating a Try This blog around the topic of context versus content.

In short, content is what you talk about, while context is how you talk about it.

Think about a glass of water. The content is the water while the glass is the context. Like a glass of water, the content of your workshop (the activities, group discussions, etc.) is contained within the context (or topic of the workshop).

In my case, the content of my presentation is RJ, but I’m presenting the information within the context of clinical and primary care settings.

However, in the client’s case, the participants in the learning collaborative will be looking at how they can provide patient-centered care (content) within the context of RJ.

Another way to look at this consider context within the context (haha) of big-picture thinking. Context is the surrounding atmosphere, the circumstances, perspectives, and intentions that form the foundation of the topic. Content is the activities, details, and events.

This activity is ideal for:

Anyone who has a workshop, presentation or training coming up and you’re tired of throwing together haphazard workshops, presentations and trainings

Here’s what you need:

Sheets of paper or an erasable whiteboard
Writing utensils (pens, pencils, markers, or dry erase markers)

The steps:

Take your preferred writing utensil and either a sheet of paper or erasable whiteboard and create a diagram, like this:

(more…)

19 Apr, 2019

Try This: Put the Pieces Together

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T20:31:30-04:00April 19th, 2019|Categories: Workshop, Program, & Curriculum Design|Tags: Capacity Building, program design, Try This|0 Comments

Get clear on your program’s purpose and everyone’s role.

During one of my first major evaluations, I asked the client if I could view the program’s curriculum. As I looked through it, I asked how often the curriculum is revised based on participant feedback.

The program had been around for some time, and while the client was consistent with evaluating the program and drawing out the positive feedback to share with funders, they hadn’t used the feedback to revise the actual program.

During another site visit for this program, I noticed that staff were familiar with certain aspects of the program, but not the program in its entirety, or who was responsible for what. Understandable when you’re dealing with newer versus more seasoned staff. Also, some staff were confused about the purpose of some activities and when each activity was supposed to take place.

I’ve always been of the mindset that, in order to create or revise data collection and analysis tools and processes, you need to have a general sense of program goals and how the program is supposed to function. This is important as staff will come and go. Also, there should be a process built in for revising the program so that it’s meeting the emerging needs of participants.

Similar to putting together a puzzle, it can be daunting to look at the multiple components of a program. Instead of working on the entire puzzle at once, focus on one section at a time so that it all comes together.

This activity is ideal for:

Staff responsible for developing and overseeing the implementation of programs, services, and strategies

Here’s what you need:

Your program’s logic model
Your program curriculum
Bonus: Your most recent program data that gives you insight about the program (compiled and synthesized data)

The process:

Typically with my Try This exercises, I lay out all the steps. For this exercise, I’m going to leave that up to you.

To frame it, there are three parts to this process. First, review your program’s goals and objectives. Second, look at your staff roles to assess 1) whether everyone currently connected to the program is being utilized in ways that align with the programs and objectives, 2) if those involved are utilizing their expertise, and 3) who is responsible for what. Third, review the program’s activities to assess if these activities currently align with the goals and objectives.

(Also, it should go without saying that “program” can also mean service, workshop, training, initiative, strategy, and so forth).

Here are some guiding questions (and feel free to add more):

(more…)

22 Mar, 2019

Try This: I Like, I Wish, I Wonder

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T20:27:39-04:00March 22nd, 2019|Categories: Workshop, Program, & Curriculum Design|Tags: Facilitation, Try This, Workshops|0 Comments

This this activity out and let me know how it goes for you.

I’ve used “I Like, I Wish, I Wonder” as a way to get quick feedback from my program and workshop participants.

Adapted from the Stanford Design School’s “I Like, I Wish, How to” process, I first used “I Like, I Wish, I Wonder” during an evaluation project with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s sexual and reproductive justice campaign. The campaign’s Community Engagement Group facilitated local gatherings in the five boroughs to gather insights into how various demographics were advancing Reproductive Justice in their communities.

Due to the gatherings being large in scope and attendance, we 1) needed something quick for the participants to fill out before leaving, and 2) wanted to develop an easy-to-understand evaluation process that was easy for DOHMH staff to volunteers to administer onsite (as I was not able to be at all gatherings) and for participants to not have much of a problem completing. Also, it was a lesson learned in developing an evaluation tool that generates honest constructive feedback AND helping staff and volunteers learn how to look for generated themes by a variety of participants.

This activity is ideal for:

Staff responsible for developing and overseeing the implementation of programs, services, and strategies
Gathering quick feedback in a time-crunch
Breaking out of the standard survey construction model
Staff interested in building their skills and confidence in qualitative data collection and analysis

Here’s what you need:

There are two ways to implement this process:

Option 1: Sheets of paper, writing utensils
Option 2: Butcher paper or a white board, a marker, writing utensils, post-its

The process:

For option 1: Have participants divide their sheets into four quadrants labeled “I Like”, “I Wish”, “I Wonder”. (You can also have sheets that already have the labels typed out. You’ll have an empty quadrant, and I’ll explain what to do with it later.

(more…)

13 Feb, 2019

How Nonprofits Can Build a Bias for Action

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T20:24:45-04:00February 13th, 2019|Categories: Workshop, Program, & Curriculum Design|Tags: Design Thinking, Human Centered Design|0 Comments

One thing that’s fascinated me about the design thinking process is how nonprofits can use it to listen to the needs of their communities and think outside the box when taking action, despite design thinking being primarily known as a business strategy.

Another reason I like design thinking is that it uses the stories of individuals and communities for meaningful impact, storytelling and engagement that advanced an organization’s mission.

And connecting the evaluation process to design thinking seems like a no-brainer.

We’ve discussed the first three steps in the design thinking process- empathize, define, and ideate. Let’s finish out this series with the final two steps in the process- prototyping and testing.

With design thinking, testing and evaluating feedback helps nonprofits observe and uncover additional wants and needs from the communities they serve.

But I’ll admit that I initially wasn’t sold on the last two steps.

(more…)

Try This: Find Your Unlikely Allies

Try This: Context ​vs Content

Try This: Put the Pieces Together

Try This: I Like, I Wish, I Wonder

How Nonprofits Can Build a Bias for Action

This Is A Custom Widget

Try This: Context vs Content