NPS Community Assistance Academy Foundational Training

Foundational Training

This curriculum serves as a template that can be revised after the assessment of each cohort going through the training. Depending on the group’s learning needs, courses can be added to or removed from this program.

RTCA team members will meet regularly online and in-person with participants to form a learning community to provide relevant mentorships, practicums, projects and reflection on learning.

This structured learning community will meet for a year to provide ongoing support and structure for the program. In many cases, the group will discuss the specific ways that RTCA team members would use the material effectively for their projects.

More information about the coursework and learning objectives for each core competency on the Foundational Training page.

During the first month, we’ll create the learning community and introduce team members to community assistance through coursework and examples. Mentors will be assigned, and training goals will be reviewed, including practicums and potential projects.

Month 1

Course #1: Introduction to RTCA Project Planning, Development and Management

Description: In this custom course designed and taught by RTCA team members, we will focus on project planning and management concepts and techniques that apply specifically to RTCA’s work. This will be a hands-on course that sets the foundation for how projects are managed during the RTCA project lifecycle.

Trainer: Custom course developed and taught by RTCA team

Length: 16 hours online or four days in-person

Core Competency: Project Planning and Management

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the typical stages of project planning.
• Explain the RTCA project life cycle.
• Describe how to define scope, vision, goals, outcomes and determine capacity.
• Describe an RTCA project work plan, specifying how to work with partners to break down a project into its components, including how to create a schedule, budget, set milestones and measurable goals.
• Explain how to determine project goals, vision and mission.
• Identify data to gather and field research needed for the type of project.
• Identify potential partners and stakeholders.
• Explain how to set up a communications plan, including technical and strategic aspects of communication.
• Describe the principles and methods for evaluating program performance as they apply to community-planning projects.
• Define project management terms and principles.
• Name strategies, techniques and tools for managing processes and projects.
• Describe the importance of time management.
• Identify when a project is deviating from the scope, goals and vision.
• Identify the elements of a project closeout.
• Describe platforms and tools for effective project management and interaction with partners.
• Use basic software used in project management.

Month 2

Course #2: Essential Facilitation

Description: Essential Facilitation provides a framework of proven techniques for building understanding, human connection, and lasting agreements in meetings. These methods have been used by hundreds of organizations to generate faster decisions, increase creativity and productivity, shorten cycle times, and build support for implementation across stakeholder populations.

Core competency: Facilitation

Trainer: Interaction Associates

Format: In person or live online

Length: 16 hours
Three days in person or
Eight 2-hour online sessions

Learning Objectives:

• Design agendas and group processes
• Engage everyone in discussions.
• Keep meetings focused and on track.
• Help people share their ideas whatever their first language or communication style.
• Use a variety of strategies, tools, and techniques to build understanding and agreement.
• Guide a group through a collaborative problem-solving process.
• Leverage diverse experiences and points-of-view to generate creative solutions.
• Model facilitative behaviors that others begin to emulate.

RTCA specific (not in course)

• Identify processes and gather detailed research about community and stakeholders.
• Employ techniques to record and document discussion notes and outcomes.
• Evaluate meetings and workshops and determine action items and next steps.
• Explain consensus building and alternative methods for decision-making.
• Demonstrate team values and co-facilitation techniques.

Month 3

Course #3: Building and Sustaining Teams

Description:
Effective teaming fosters collaboration, encourages information-sharing, and yields dynamic results. This course provides specific strategies for building and sustaining high-performing teams. Course topics include why and how teams form, building a strong foundation for a team, establishing trust within the team, communicating effectively as a team, encouraging participation in team visioning and decision-making, managing performance through feedback and facilitative leadership, managing conflict and difficult team behaviors, ways to sustain high performance on a team, and supporting team learning. 

Trainer: NPS – Presented by Management Concepts

Format: Online or in person

Length: TBD

Core competency: Team and Partnership Development

Learning Objectives:

• Describe approaches to building teams.
• Define criteria that will make team successful.
• Establish trusting relationships with and among team members.
• Create effective communication norms.
• Use approaches for systematically involving all in team communication, team visioning and decision-making.
• Promote team collaboration through unifying activities and participatory techniques.
• Leverage specific team learning techniques to advance team member development.
• Promote effective individual and team behaviors that foster success.

Course #4: RTCA Partnership Essentials

Description: The goal of this introductory course is to create and strengthen the knowledge of partnership for new RTCA staff. 

Trainer: Custom course developed and taught by RTCA team

Format: Hybrid

Length: 5 hours

Core competency: Team and Partnership Development

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the principles, methods and procedures related to developing and maintaining partnerships.
• Recognize organizational and partnership structure needed for a particular project and evolve it as needed.
• Identify stakeholders and the spectrum of partner roles and responsibilities in project plan and implementation.
• Identify essential partners and established networks for successful project implementation.
• Identify methods for monitoring and tracking progress and outcomes.
• Discuss the importance of partnership work and collaboration.
• Identify barriers to meaningful partnership engagement.
• Explain the importance of partner culture awareness.
• Describe strategic planning for organizations and partnerships, including goal setting and vision.
• Describe different structural models for partnerships and collaboration.
• Identify how to build coalitions.
• Describe various types of governance agreements for various project types, including MOUs, MOAs and more formal contracts.

Month 4

Course #5: Foundations in Public Participation

Includes two courses: Planning for Effective Public Participation and Techniques for Effective Public Participation 

Description: The planning module provides learners with a structure that will greatly increase their odds of a successful project. The hands-on courses give learners the opportunity to delve into their own challenges using the essential elements of effective public participation planning.

Core Competency: Community Outreach and Engagement

Trainer: IAP2

Length: Three days or 36 hours online

Learning Objectives:

• Evaluate the scope of a decision and identifying the processes needed.
• Identify the decision steps including timing and needed resources.
• Establish roles and responsibilities of the primary parties.
• Develop a comprehensive, decision impact analysis to identify the stakeholder community, their concerns, and hopes.
• Select the appropriate level of public participation.
• Set clear and achievable objectives.
• Develop a detailed public participation plan.
• Plan for communications initiatives that support the process.
• Identify appropriate evaluation tools to measure the effectiveness of the initiative.

RTCA specific (not in course)

• Prepare outreach documents appropriate for the project and community needs, including objectives, vision and goal development.
• Describe how to conduct strategic outreach and build social networks.
• Explain how to gain knowledge of demographics to map priority areas.
• Identify appropriate practices to gather data in a variety of situations, including surveying, interpreting statistics, demographics, and more.

Month 5

Course #6: Inspiring Leadership through Emotional Intelligence

Description: When you recognize emotions as they arise in response to an action or situation, you can address problems and better handle future complications. It helps you establish meaningful connections, allowing you to enhance and expand relationships which lead to better results. Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is an essential beginning to sustained, desired change for individuals, teams, organizations. Through lecture, experiential activities, individual discovery, reflection, and group discussion, participants will explore how Emotional Intelligence (EQ) can inspire more effective leadership. This two-day course introduces participants to the fundamentals of EQ and immerses them in the broad areas of Self Awareness, Social Awareness, Self-Management, and Social Management. 

Core Competency: Strategic Leadership

Trainer: US Fish and Wildlife Services

Length: 2-day seminar

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the history of EQ and its practice in the workplace
• Build EQ capacity
• Employ mindfulness practices to increase self-awareness and management
• Establish both an individual and systems perspective in analyzing situations
• Gain a basic understanding of the human brain, neurochemicals, and how both contribute to forming patterns of response
• Build emotional literacy, recognize emotional baseline, and understand the power of purpose and presence
• Apply techniques to skillfully work with triggering thoughts, feelings, and emotions
• Restore emotional baseline after experiencing strong emotions
• Listen with empathy and leverage presence in high-stakes situations
• Use knowledge of neuroleadership and the underlying drivers of human social behavior to collaborate and influence others.

Course #7: Introduction to Equity in Community Building

Description: Effective community work applies an equity lens with an emphasis on building individuals to engage diverse communities through culturally competent approaches.

There are numerous barriers to such engagement, some conscious, and some unconscious. Race, class, and cultural communication styles all influence the ways in which diverse communities relate to the work.

This training will introduce participants to equity, culturally competent approaches, and how to think collaboratively about ways to effectively engage diverse populations and communities in their efforts.

Core Competency: Strategic Leadership

Trainer: NPS

Length: 9 hours online

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the concepts of equity and inclusion.
• Describe how to employ active listening, listening with respect and listening to be understood.
• Acknowledge the value of diverse attitudes, perspectives and experiences among team members, stakeholders and partners.
• Identify key community groups, cultural leaders and existing social networks for outreach.
• Describe outreach and engagement best practices for diverse audiences.
• Use historical research to understand and overcome biases.
• Plan meetings designed with an explicitly multicultural frame.
• Describe how to facilitate emphasizing transparency and fairness.
• Demonstrate culturally sensitive knowledge about working with different groups.
• Describe how to offer equity-focused support and resources to project partners.
• Identify how to adapt to and communicate appropriately with a variety of audiences.

RTCA Specific: (not in course)

• Invest time in community profiles and other background research to learn more about partners and to understand how community history, cultural norms and context influence project. 
• Gather data and employ analytic tools that ensure full representation of community input and need.

Month 6

Course #8: Elements of Collaboration

Description: Strong teams have the right people at the table, good working relationships, shared purpose and goals, an agreed upon decision making model, and communication skills and strategy to address breakdowns.

When groups with different interests and abilities cooperate to accomplish something, organizations are bringing individual strengths, skills, and connections to accomplish something that separately they could not do as well.  But it only works if the atoms in your molecule – the people in this room and the organizations you represent – are connected and aligned toward common goals.

The five modules in this training address the 20 essential elements to creating collaborative working environment.

• Convene the Right People
• Cultivate Relationships
• Clarify Shared Purpose and Goals
• Confirm Governance
• Elevate Communication

Trainer: RTCA custom developed and taught course

Core Competency: Team and Partnership Development

Length: Approximately 15 hours total broken into 5 modules

Learning Objectives:

• Identify essential partners and stakeholders for your collaborative.
• Develop an inclusion strategy for bringing people to the table. 
• Gain insight into the skills, experiences, and working styles of different people.
• Establish guiding principles for working collaboratively.
• Understand each group’s interests and needs.
• Craft a shared vision of your future.
• Develop a purpose statement to unify your group, clarify its importance, and keep your work on track.
• Develop measurable goals and strategies.
• Identify practices for working together effectively, including collaborative governance, leadership and authority, representation of the communities you serve, decision-making process, effective communications, roles / responsibilities, accountability, and organizational structure.
• Learn effective group communication skills to build trust and collaborate well.
• Learn to recognize conflict and gain tools for addressing it constructively.
• Develop healthy norms and behaviors with communication ground rules.

Month 7

Course #9: ToP Facilitation Methods for Community Engagement

Description: ToP methods were created and refined through decades of community-based change work. This course follows the cycle of a community planning process, analysis, planning, implementation and evaluation. Learn both theoretical frameworks and practical tools to support authentic community engagement, community driven and led decision-making throughout a community project planning cycle. Participants will be an interactive learning community, learning from each other in addition to the tools and frameworks shared.

Core Competency: Facilitation and Team and Partnership Development

Trainer: Technology of Participation

Length: 2 days or online training (custom course)

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the project life cycle of a community initiative
• Create inclusive meeting design that will help move forward projects or initiatives
• Engage community stakeholders in the planning process
• Foster ownership and buy in from community stakeholders
• Facilitate meaningful and productive conversations in a variety of settings
• Create consensus of clear goals and strategies
• Be clear about the level of participation you are seeking in the community work
• Understand the asset-based approach to community development
• Identify community stakeholders and assets
• Identify and map different types of partnerships and stakeholders and strategize engagement
• Facilitate group consensus-based workshops
• Shape questions that stimulate candid feedback and discussion
• Acquire a framework for any group process – from a small workshop to a multi-day conference
• Assemble detailed action plans in less time
• Guide a meaningful group conversation

RTCA Specific: (not in course)

• Explain facilitation planning and design for in-person and virtual settings.
• Recognize how to use space and time effectively. 
• Identify processes and gather detailed research about community and stakeholders.
• Evaluate meetings and workshops and determine action items and next steps.
• Describe platforms and tools essential for effective in-person and virtual facilitation.
• Identify ways to use tools such as flips charts, graphic facilitation, sticky notes and voting techniques to engage participants.

Months 8-12

Presentations and Project Updates

Optional Courses

Optional Course #1: Strategies For Dealing With Opposition And Outrage In Public Participation

Description: This workshop is based on the theories of Dr. Peter Sandman (www.psandman.com), creator of the “Risk = Hazard + Outrage” formula and a pre-eminent risk communication speaker and consultant. This course will help you move people from rage to reason and engage stakeholders in building consensus for better decisions.

This practical, hands-on workshop is a fresh 4-day, 3-hour mix of lecture, video, small and large group discussion, and authentic, real-world exercises that give you the answers, tools, and ability to prevent problems, manage the tough public issues that you face and keep your organization on track and moving forward.

Core Competency: Community Outreach and Engagement

Trainer: IAP2

Length: 12 hours

Learning Objectives:

• Identify and access the root causes of public frustration, anger and outrage
• Understand 12 factors of citizen emotion and be better able to predict and prevent public anger
• Comprehend different strategies for the 4 kinds of risk communication
• Learn the 6 main ways to prevent or reduce public wrath, to make room for reason and allow effective public engagement to take place
• Manage public opposition
• Manage outrage in public participation
• Use specific tools and techniques for working with the angriest people
• Conduct stakeholder analysis and motivations
• Remove the internal barriers to outrage management
• How to ask questions with value and empathy
• Roles and responsibilities: Who should do what
• How your own attitude impacts public and stakeholder anger

Optional Course #2: Planning and Designing Engaging Virtual Meetings 

Description: Designing and running virtual and hybrid meetings that keep people engaged and achieve results is hard work. Without continual engagement in relevant conversations, participants are likely to tune out, hang back or drift away.

Planning and Designing Engaging Virtual Meetings shows people how to design virtual and hybrid meetings that invite active participation, combining new tips and approaches with their available collaboration tools.

Core Competency: Facilitation

Learning Objectives:

Trainer: Nancy Settle-Murphy/Guided Insights

Length: 8 hours onsite or remote

• Creating a realistic agenda that achieves results in the allotted time
• Keeping people engaged and actively participating
• Balancing participation with diplomacy
• Staying focused and on time
• Maintaining momentum and following through
• Creating a level playing field between remote and in-person participants
• Maintaining momentum and following up

Resources

Project Management Community of Practice (CoP)