Menu
This is a tailored Community Leadership Development Program (CLDP) to help drive transformational change by helping to develop community leaders as community champions who will in turn be able to mentor and guide others in their respective / cross-communities.
Applying an emergent process, the program will be co-designed with the lead organisation and target groups which will involve getting to know the candidates, their passion and strengths and the motivation to participate in the program. The program generally has two components: Training component and a Mentoring component.
This program has been very popular with settlement service providers offering Community Capacity Building (CCB) programs for newly arrived refugees and migrants and for councils to help enhance the capacity of their local communities.
Om offers this unique refugee settlement training program which is supported by theory and practical models demonstrated through Om’s real-life examples and lived refugee experience.
When migrants and refugees settle in a new country and a new environment, they face a number of initial settlement challenges. The way the community approaches these challenges will mean a community completely relying on outside help and the increasing need for services and government funding or that which will harness its own resources, build community capacity and reduced need for external support.
By training staff in this strength-based approach, organisations will be able to achieve better outcomes and increase the impact of their work or assist more people not by working harder but by working differently.
The program can be tailored to suit participants and organisational requirements. Key topics covered may include:
The program is primarily aimed at refugee settlement but it can be designed and tailored to suit other human services delivery areas as well.
This training is suitable for organisation-wide roll-out. The training will build on Strength-Based Approach (SBA) to Refugee Settlement and Asset Based Community Development (ABCD), and will enhance organisation’s efforts in discovering and mobilising the resources that are already present in communities that it operates.
Depending on organisational preference, staff can be trained as trainers to offer training internally as required.
For senior leadership team in an organisation and other key people identified by the leaders.
This workshop will help prepare senior leaders to initiate and embrace change; help drive a paradigm shift in service delivery by adopting a strength-based approach to settlement as well as other human services delivery. It will in turn help leaders to increase the impact of their work or assist more people not by working harder but by working differently.
‘What do we need’: Need-Based Approach – thinking in terms of needs, problems and deficiencies such as unemployment, youth issues, lack of local experience or education and training. It ignores the resources, skills and abilities that already exist in the community. Services are generally designed and delivered by outside experts and the people will be positioned as passive, powerless and dependent on outside help and assistance.
‘What do we have’: Strength-Based Approach – starting on the premises that the newly arrived migrant and refugees are resourceful and gifted and will be more likely to draw upon the skills of local people to address issues and solve problems. Outside assistance and resources may still be required but the programs will largely be designed and driven by the local community.
For successful refugee settlement and more broadly for community development, the challenge is for key stakeholders is to provide necessary services while at the same time help drive community engagement and address issues utilising the skills and assets from within.
© 2024 Om Dhungel