learningforsustainability.netGuides to help initiate and manage social processes
This page provides access to guides that provide information, tools and techniques for those wishing to manage the social processes required to support community and regional development. The basic principles are universal and there are a wide range of guides developed in many different contexts that can help us. However, to achieve change policy makers and others need to be aware of the characteristics of complex social systems, and what these mean for the design of constructive interventions.
- The community toolbox The Tool Box provides over 6,000 pages of practical information to support your work in promoting community health and development. This web site is created and maintained by the Work Group on Health Promotion and Community Development at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas (U.S.A). The core of the Tool Box is the "topic sections" that include practical guidance for the different tasks necessary to promote community health and development. For instance, there are sections on leadership, strategic planning, community assessment, grant writing, and evaluation to give just a few examples. Each section includes a description of the task, advantages of doing it, step-by-step guidelines, examples, checklists of points to review, and training materials.
- Tools of Change: Proven Methods for Promoting Health, Safety and Environmental Citizenship This Canadian website, founded on the principles of community-based social marketing, offers specific tools, case studies, and a planning guide for helping people take actions and adopt habits that promote health and/or are more environmentally-friendly. This Web site will help you include in your programs the best practices of many other programs - practices that have already been successful in changing people's behaviour.
- The Community Sustainability Assessment Tool The non-profit Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) promotes human activities and technologies that can be harmlessly integrated into the natural world in a way that is supportive of healthy human development and can be successfully continued into the indefinite future. Their sustainability auditing tool provides an "acid test" for comparing an existing community (city, village, neighborhood) with ideal goals for ecological, social, and spiritual sustainability. In addition, this tool is a learning instrument - pointing out actions aspiring individuals and communities can take to become more sustainable. A different - but smaller version - checklist can be found at http://www.pca.state.mn.us/oea/sc/criteria.cfm
- The Guide to Effective Participation This guide was developed by David Wilcox for community activists and professionals seeking to get other people involved in social, economic and environmental projects and programmes. The toolkit part of the pack provides a range of techniques and tools from which organisations and individuals can select. The tools assist in identifying blockages and suggest ways forward. Careful selection and application of the most appropriate tool is an essential part of any job, but organisations using a tool for the first time may need to seek advice. The guide provides some signposts to further information about the tools and their use.
- The Change Management Toolbook This site by Holger Nauheimer provides a collection of more than 60 tools, methods and strategies which you can apply during different stages of personal, team and organizational development, in training, facilitation and consulting. It is divided in three principle sections: Self, Team and Larger System. The site's introduction to change management is a good place to start.
- Fostering Sustainable Behavior This site by Doug McKenzie-Mohr was developed for people who design programs to foster sustainable behavior, to provide information that can enhance the success of their efforts. The site consists of six resources:an online guide which illustrates how to use community-based social marketing, searchable databases of articles, downloadable reports, graphics, and case studies on fostering sustainable behavior; and a listserv for sharing information and asking questions of others.
- Local government consultation and engagement resource website This guide was developed by the Victorian State government of Australia. It aims to provide local governments with the information, tools and support to more effectively consult and engage communities in local decision-making processes. This website contains information including: The basics; Consultation methods - How to?; Choosing a method; Engaging the hard-to-reach groups; Case study examples; Consultation planning and process design; and Consultation strategy development.
- The true costs of participation: A framework
How easy is it to establish what a participation initiative has really achieved - or simply whether the benefits were really worth the time and money? This document introduces a framework for thinking about the costs and value of participation in a structured way. UK focused, but with implications for participatory processes in all societies, the paper has three main sections: Introducing participation; planning for participation; and methods for participation. This document is based on research and collaborative development through a programme of interviews, workshops, desk research and discussions carried out in 2004/05.
- Public Participation Program Manual This guide from the Maroochy Shire Council of Queensland, Australia provides a guide, tools, and worksheets. It is aimed at local governments and other participation proponents and aims to help integrate participation into projects, plans and strategies. [Requires downloading a number of PDF files.]
- International Association of Public Participation (IAP2) IAP2 is an association of members who seek to promote and improve the practice of public participation in relation to individuals, governments, institutions, and other entities that effect the public interest in nations throughout the world. This page provides links to a toolbox and a useful typology around public participation.
- Building stronger communities - e-library The E-Library is designed to provide an easily accessible, practical and relevant set of resources, available via the internet, for community projects and practitioners. You will find articles, practical guides, case studies, tool kits, links to useful websites, training materials and knowledge papers written especially for the E-Library. It also makes available the resources produced by the CBRS projects. The Community Building Resource Service (CBRS) was set up in September 2003 by the Victorian government of Australia to test a range of community strengthening skills and information support services. Such services are now frequently an integrated component of community strengthening initiatives and the CBRS concluded in 2006.
- Next Step website This site has been designed to provide Minnesota Sustainable Communities Network (MnSCN) members and others with information, access to resources, opportunities for networking, and inspiration on the topic of sustainable communities.
- Participatory Methods' Toolkit: A Practitioner's Manual. This 2005 publication is designed
to create a hands-on toolkit for starting up and managing participatory projects. It is funded by the King Baudouin Foundation and the Flemish Institute for Science and
Technology Assessment. The manual is meant to be placed on many virtual bookshelves: on that of the inexperienced person who sets first steps into the challenging world of participation as well as on that of the experienced practitioner, who uses this manual for
specific sections, such as tips and tricks, or to get acquainted with other methods.
This publication is meant to be a working tool. For those who are interested by one method, they can download a PDF file which contains that method only. All of the existing PDF files are available on the following websites: www.viwta.be - www.kbs-frb.be
- Recommendations for behaviour change programs to reduce greenhouse impacts in SA This report by Julia Winefield considers how to achieve a shift towards more sustainable and greenhouse friendly behaviour and make recommendations for behaviour change programs in South Australia based on these findings. It does this by an examination of evidence-based theories of behaviour change and actual programs that have been run in Australia and Canada.
- Social capital: A tool for public policy This 2005 study by the Canadian government Policy Research Initiative (PRI) concludes that government action could be more effective if, in developing relevant programs and initiatives, the role of social capital were taken into account more systematically. This summary report shows which areas of policy lend themselves to improvement by the development of social capital, and the types of approaches that could be used to achieve this. More complete studies to support this are provided in the following reports:
- Social capital in action
- Measurement of social capital
- Social Capital as a Public Policy Tool
- Behaviour Change Research and Guidance In July 2005, the UK-based Defra initiated a programme of research that aimed to broaden understanding of how Government (and others) can most effectively promote pro-environmental behaviour amongst producers and consumers. The key findings and policy implications from this programme of research are summarised in a series of ten practical guides for policy makers and practitioners. This page also contains links to wider studies on behaviour change.
- Social capital in action
