Performing Department
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Non Technical Summary
Project Title:"Strengthening Capacities to Provide More Effective Training and Technical Assistance."Overall goal: Strengthen capacities of refugee farming incubators to provide more effective T&TA for their participants, who in turn will farm more successfully.Objectives:1:Create a Community of Practice (CoP) among participants.2:Develop and teach novel, comprehensive approaches for adult education and refugee audience communications.3:Expand refugee-appropriate T&TA resources for use by providers and beginning farmers.4:Have 50+ refugee incubators access farmer T&TA resourcesOutcomes:Incubator staff engage in peer-to-peer learning and sharing.Refugee incubators integrate project resources into their T&TA materials.Incubators report significant improvements in training and T&TA skills.20+ incubators integrate our new resources to improve their T&TA content.Hundreds of farmers and farmer trainers access our online training materials.40+ RFIPs use best practices appropriate for education, training and technical assistance.Collaborators:Trainers:International Rescue Committee (IRC) NYC; IRC Charlottesville, VA: Lutheran Services of Iowa, Catholic Charities of Northern Kansas.Training recipients:20 refugee incubators: Include above partners; IRC Tucson, AZ; Sacramento, CA; Seattle, WA; Charlottesville, VA; Salt Lake City, UT; Cultivate Kansas City. Ten of 20 new incubator applicants will also participate.
Animal Health Component
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Research Effort Categories
Basic
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Applied
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Developmental
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Goals / Objectives
Goal / Objectives:Theoverall goalfor this work is to strengthen the capacities of refugee farming incubators to provide more effective T&TA for their participants, who in turn will farm more successfully.(Note: Outcomes are listed in Plan for Outcome Reporting)?Objective 1: Select and orient Training of Trainers (ToT) providers and partners. Objective 2:Create a Community of Practice (CoP). Implement Training of Trainers' intra-project diffusion to facilitate teamwork, creative brainstorming, idea sharing and problem solving. Objective 3:Develop and teach novel, comprehensive approaches for adult education and refugee audience communications. Objective 4:Expand refugee-appropriate T&TA resources for use by providers and beginning farmers.Objective 5:50+ refugee incubators and numerous other programs for beginning farmers have access to multiple staff training (ToT) and farmer T&TA resources produced by this project.
Project Methods
Obj. 1: Select and orient Training of Trainers(ToT) providers and partners.After multiple planning sessions and additional surveys with incubators, we are prioritizing ToT - see Obj. 3. We reached out directly to over 40 incubators with details and received 30 applications - 10 from existing partners and the rest from those we haven't yet worked with directly. From these, 20 will be selected for the 3-year ToT program; and at least half will be totally new to this ToT. Each has identified one or two lead staff, and all are expected to include other staff as much as possible. The ToT is provided at no cost to them; in addition, travel is covered for one person to attend each annual meeting, and small stipends ($2500 over three years) will also be provided to support some of their TOT time or (preferably) to bring a second attendee to annual meetings.ToT developers: Each topic involves trainings - presentations, some advance preparation, some exercises - and a follow-up printable guide. At the ToT provider end, teams will also be formed to plan and deliver the nine subjects being covered, comprising ISED staff, selected incubators with ToT experience, and consultants with subject matter expertise. Most ToT team members have been identified, except for some outside specialists (partly because of challenges to get their commitments up to three years in advance). These candidates will be well-researched each year to find suitable assistance.Obj. 2: Implement a Community of Practice (CoP)approach to all aspects of this initiative.'CoP' is a group that actively shares common concerns, opportunities, strategies, and interests. Here it comprises 50+ participants form 20 incubators plus ISED staff.Obj 3: Training of Trainers (ToT) Skills DevelopmentSessions will be planned and delivered by a combination of ISED staff; incubator partners; and outside experts. Nine major themes are addressed; many over two years. As such, four or five per year will be implemented. Subject matter will be covered at annual 2.5 day in-persons meetings (locations will vary), and virtually via multiple 1-2 hour on-line sessions each year. Each topic will comprise at least 4 hours; some will be twice as long, broken up by year.The nine themes are as follows:(1):Plain Language (PL): Deliverables include:A 2-hour intro-level training with accompanying PowerPoints; recorded for ongoing use.A new guidebook tailored to using PL for beginning English learners.Incorporating ESL opportunities, such as vocabulary, especially agricultural.Reviews of all T&TA resources for PL content.Additional high quality third-party PL training resources posted to our website.(2) Plain speaking:Deliverables include:A 2-hour intro-level training with accompanying PowerPoints; recorded for ongoing use.A new guidebook tailored to developing Plain Speaking used for new English learners T&TA.Rescripting and piloting our Plain Language T&TA resources with Plain Speaking content.Linking these to the companion Public Speaking section (#3 below).(3)Effective communications / public speaking:Deliverables include:A4-6 hour in-person training by a specialist.Includes practice sessions for attendees at the same meeting.A new guide for ongoing use by incubators and others.Additional high quality third-party resources- written or video - posted to our website.(4) Working with interpreters:Deliverables include:A 2-hour intro-level training by a specialist with accompanying PowerPoints;An updated ISED Interpretation Guide for ongoing consultation.Incorporating ESL opportunities.Posting available third-party PL trainings - written and recorded modes - to our website.(5): Adult education:Deliverables include:A new Experiential Adult Education written guide building on presentation content developed and delivered in 2023 by IRC.An orientation session on this training and manual for all participants in this project.Additional high quality third-party adult education resources - written and AV modes - posted to our website.(6): Curriculum and lesson planning:Deliverables include:Two, 2-hour sessions to share best practices and templates for creating lesson plans. These are recorded to be accessible throughout the project and beyond.Several incubator programs use the lesson plan template to modify or add to their existing courses and class designs and content.A third session will share and review these examples created by the incubator programs.A guidebook, including lesson plan examples, will incorporate content of all three sessions.(7) Content / product design:Deliverables include:Review of Taylor Fourt's 2023 presentation that will be new to 75% this new team of participants.An adapted presentation on content and product design elements.An updated presentation on visual literacy, especially related to use of our images in T&TA content.A new guidebook to integrate components of these presentations.(8) Farmer engagement in T&TA: Deliverables include:IRC will develop a 10 hour training over two years in skills for working with refugee farmer audiences. These will be delivered at annual meetings and virtually.IRC will accompany this training with a toolkit of resources for implementing new knowledge and skills learned through the workshop; posted to multiple websites.ISED will gather best practices realized by other refugee projects in piloting these strategies.(9)Diversity, equity, inclusion and access (DEIA) for refugees:Deliverables include:Participants will review literature on DEI principles and refugee-related aspects.A DEI specialist will provide a 2-hour overview. It may be recorded and available to access throughout the project.Added emphasis on cultural dimensions of DEI for refugee participants from 30+ countries.Discussion groups will follow to share perspective and strategize how best to incorporate these principles into T&TA and other work with farmers.A manual will be developed to capture key dimensions of this DEI.Obj. 4:Expand refugee-appropriate T&TA resources for use by providers and beginning farmers.As noted, refugee T&TA resources are a very important dimensions of our work since 2015 and will continue here. These have evolved to include multiple types of products (as described earlier). The emphasis is on appealing layouts, multiple visuals, minimal Plain Language and vocabulary for ESL, and accessibility via different technologiesWe have also been producing non-narrated short videos that farmers can access directly on smartphones, tablets or computers via YouTube - see:ISED Farm Videos.Going forward, only ISED staff will produce new farmer T&TA materials.; Prior development partners will now work on ToT guides and presentations. The ToT here will also support additional associated farmer T&TA content supported by a 2501 grant. T&TA production will include:New products: A: Videos - 12; Major Guides - 3; Posters and Handouts - 21 items.Revised / updated content (e.g., our modules) - 24 items.Image library -A: 250-500 more photos for our photo bank; B: 30-80 graphics for the art bank.Associated responsibilities include posting all resources on our new websitewww.isedsolutions.net(launching very soon), and maintenance and upkeep of product availability and image library on ISED's website.Obj. 5: Dissemination.Deliverables include:Posting all resources on our new websitewww.isedsolutions.net(launching very soon), andFarm Answers website.Maintaining content and image library on ISED website.Circulating URL links to both websites to reach all incubators and other beginning farmers.Promoting our resources on our national listservs hosted by the P.D., reaching almost 10,000 combined subscribers.