Steps - Local Response Progression

The Local response progression as used for many years is for enabling a strategic responses while working with communities. The foundational principles comes from a place of belief, practice and behaviour of a Facilitation Team....the seven steps highlight those key principles for stimulating the response within a community:

Step 1: In the building, we don't go out, we work only in one place, with same people and have a routine.

Step 2: We step out and work somewhere, but the community still comes to us, we don't go to the Community

Step 3: Through strategic engagements at step 2, we are invited into homes and we visit with others, we engage in conversation exploring issues that really worry families and communities, how they respond, what strengths are present and what visions/hopes and dreams families have for their children or their communities. Its not a survey, its not an interview, its a normal home visit with normal conversations with less intimidating questions, instead of asking what is your problem or what do you need? we ask what are you worried about?

Step 4: Continuous home visits stimulate further invitations and suspicion from neighbours and they also invite you to visit them or they join in the home visits, hence neighbourhood conversations begin, led mostly by communities themselves.

Step 5: Neighbourhood conversations continue to build up and eventually become community counselling processes, at this stage, the facilitation team's role shifts completely as the community takes over ownership of the response.

Step 6: Communities over time, feel they need to measure and document their process, this is done systematically with the support of the facilitation team. What is analyzed is more than quantity of response but how are we seeing care? what has changed? how do we see strengths for community/sense for belonging? What elements of visionary leadership have we seen, how is transfer taking place? what is the capacity in this community?

Step 7: Family members/visitors, other people, from other communities visit, and they see the robust response, they are motivated because they are also concerned for their own communities, and they go back and talk to other people, a process emerges and transfer between communities starts.