Dimensions of capacity building

gaylbowser@gmail.com

9/16/2019 3:55 AM

Our previous discussion ended with these questions:
• What do you mean when you think about building capacity to provide effective communication programs for students with complex communication needs?
• Whose capacity do you want to help increase as they support children with complex communication needs?
• What additional skills and abilities do those people need to develop?
• How do the services that you currently provide help or impede the development of those skills and abilities and the ability to apply them independently?

Here are some examples of responses I have heard when I work with groups of families, educators and service providers. 
• We want all team members to increase their ability to identify communication attempts and consistently respond to them in ways agreed upon by the team.
• We want all team members to understand our approach to communication assessment and take an active role in it.
• We want all team members to be able to identify appropriate communication goals for students with complex communication needs and develop multiple activities during a school dat to help them achieve those goals.
• We want all team members to be able to apply classroom communication strategies in multiple environments outside of the classroom

The above statements focus on the skills, abilities, actions and attitudes of team members, but there’s much more to program level capacity building than what individual people do.  If our focus for improvement is only on what we can do for individuals, then change happens one person at a time.  And there is never enough time to help every person.

There are actually four important areas to focus on when we think about building capacity. 
1. Human Capacity: Knowledge, skills and the will (e.g., interest, patience, and persistence) to implement needed changes.
2. Organizational Capacity: Interaction, collaboration, and communication among people within the organization.
3. Structural Capacity: Elements like policies, procedures, and practices.
4. Material Capacity: The fiscal resources, materials, and equipment needed to meet organizational goals and implement change (Lammert et.al., 2015)

The best way to understand this view of capacity building is with an example.  Let’s look at what Tyler (a pseudonym) did in the classrooms he served to address their abilities to improve the communication programs of their students with complex communication needs.

The need:
Tyler was frustrated with the progress of students on his case load.  He was an SLP assigned to six self-contained classrooms in his district.  He was grateful that the district had assigned him as the primary SLP for these classrooms and saw the potential to coordinate his efforts across classrooms to improve communication programs for all students.  He had hoped to be able to offer professional development to all six classes and to help each one identify changes and improvements they wanted to make in their setting.  Instead he found himself running from classroom to classroom addressing individual student issues.  There were behavior issues, devices to program, communication data to collect and IEP meetings to attend.  There was never time to begin to identify program improvement strategies.

Tyler talked with his supervisor and they analyzed the situation.  In terms of Human Capacity, they agreed that there were several teachers and educational assistants who had the knowledge, skills and interest, to take more ownership and leadership in their classroom communication programs.  Tyler could give several examples of some really excellent things that were happening in some settings. But in others, the classroom team seemed to be waiting for someone to tell them what to do.  Another area of concern was inconsistent parent involvement in communication programs.

When they looked at organizational capacity both Tyler and his supervisor agreed that the interaction, collaboration, and communication between classrooms was minimal.  There was never a chance to share successes or ask for help from other classrooms on solving specific communication issues.

They were also surprised to realize that the structure of the district’s equipment loans for self-contained classrooms was getting in the way of capacity building.  One specific example was that no classroom could try a communication device without the Tyler’s involvement. All devices except single switches were kept in the loan closet and Tyler was the only one allowed to check them out.

When they talked about material capacity, they agreed that, although the district had many AAC systems in place, classroom staff did not use a consistent communication curriculum and each student’s communication goals were set using different criteria. 

Based on this review they made a plan to help build capacity in all four areas.

The Initial Plan for Capacity Building
Activities to increase human capacity:
a. Develop a coordinated training theme for the school year for all classroom staff.  Training on appropriate communication assessment to be provided to all classrooms in the district on teacher in-service days.
b. Teacher pairs developed for assignments on communication assessments to be completed between in-service days.

Activities to increase organizational capacity
a. Institute monthly “spotlight” reports at monthly staff meetings.  Highlight activities that encourage a “culture of communication” for all students.  Each teacher will be asked to report once before the end of the school year.
b. Monthly data team meetings at each school to address student communication data and improvement.
c. Develop a parent survey to be distributed by all classrooms which is designed to identify parent needs for support from the district.

Activities to increase structural capacity
a. Revise the loan closet system.  Assign clerical person to do check-out and equipment management.
b. Develop loan criteria to allow classrooms to check out equipment for trial use with students without involvement of the SLP.

Activities to increase material capacity
a. Identify two specific classroom communication assessments that all teachers will use with students with complex communication needs. 
b. Purchase assessments for each classroom if needed.

Tyler realized that many of the activities they had planned were going to require that he change his mind-set.  He realized that he, too would be learning new skills and trying new approaches to his case load. He began to think that he might need to learn some coaching skills if he was going to help classroom staff build independence in their approaches to complex communication needs.

Reference
(Lammert, J. D., Johnson, L., & Fiore, T. A. (2015). Conceptualizing capacity building. Rockville, MD: Westat.

This post is part of the collection

1 Replies

• Newest
• Oldest
• Most liked

• 0 likes
• 1 replies

I appreciate this post so much! Thank you! 

Karen Natoci - 9/19/2019

Thanks Karen.   It's kind of the 30,000 foot view of services for children with complex communication needs.  As I was developing it, I tried to identify ways that people could actually use this information.  I thought of SLPs in schools and about families who want to focus on changes in their children's programs too. So,  I'm wondering how you found this information useful.  Would you be willing to share your ideas?

gaylbowser@gmail.com - 9/19/2019