| TA Principle |
What It Is |
What It Is Not |
| Advances the MC strategy; focuses on results |
TA helps people in Making Connections communities develop and carry out robust strategies that emerging experience and/or research suggest are likely to achieve desired results for families and neighborhoods.
TA providers take the time to familiarize themselves with the range of results being sought by the community and understand the relationship between the TA they are providing and the overall Making Connections effort. |
Requests for TA are accepted at face value. TA providers don't question whether the TA will help people act or whether their actions are likely to help improve results for families and neighborhoods.
TA providers assume that their expertise outweighs the need to adapt their work to the Making Connections focus on place-based investments to strengthen families.
TA providers assume their contract with AECF doesn't include time to familiarize themselves with the range of results being pursued in the Making Connections site. |
| Co-created, demand - driven |
TA is developed through iterative conversations with those seeking help. TA providers meet people "where they are," but offer options for action based on knowledge of best practice and what is most likely to help users of TA achieve their end goals.
TA providers ask effective questions to elicit needed information about: the end result being sought; what people need to learn to achieve that result; what relationships need to be built to foster action; what resources people have to work with; and what skills and capacities need to be developed in order to assure successful implementation of a strategy. |
TA providers assume they know best what communities need to achieve their goals.
TA providers come in at the last minute, without having had time to familiarize themselves with community dynamics.
TA providers deliver "canned" presentations without bothering to adapt to the particular circumstances of the community.
TA providers feel their job is to provide whatever is requested of them and that time has not been built into their contracts to help people understand the range of options available to meet their learning needs. |
| Offers a diversity of experience, skills, backgrounds and perspectives |
Careful efforts are made to match experiences, skills, and perspectives of TA providers to the needs of the community. TA provides work to assemble a "TA workforce" that is racially, ethnically and culturally diverse |
TA providers assume anyone with the right content knowledge can deliver the assistance requested.
Ta providers don't feel its part of their agreement with AECF to make an effort to diversify their workforce.
TA providers don't feel they have the time to do advance visits or reconnaissance to determine what sort of diversity of experience, skill, and/or experience needs to be part of the TA team. |
| Builds on local capacity |
TA is calculated to enable people to act upon what they learn and to leave behind new knowledge skills and capacity.
TA providers work closely with local stakeholders and local consultants to be sure that the community is both learning and building on existing strengths in order to put a family strengthening agenda into action.
Careful attention to follow-up may result in additional capacity-building assistance or investments to help people take next steps |
Consultant "drops-in" to community to provide expert consultation, but doesn't feel that helping people develop the skills and relationships they need to implement a new strategy or help themselves in the future is a key part of the service they are being called on to deliver.
TA providers consider their jobs done after they have met a request-follow-up is solely the responsibility of those receiving the help and not part of their agreement with AECF. |
| Draws on field-based experience |
TA providers recognize opportunities to broker assistance from people working on similar issues in other communities.
TA providers understand how a third party intermediary can assist in helping people in the field act as "peer consultants" to one another. |
TA providers would rather provide assistance themselves than arrange a well-designed learning exchange among people working in the field.
TA providers assume someone else will take responsibility for brokering learning among people working in the field. |
| Keeps family strengthening at the center |
TA providers probe for ways in which the strategy being pursued will benefit families and are sensitive to the needs of family members who may participate in the TA process. |
TA providers help craft solutions that meet the needs of whoever requested assistance, without thinking about the ultimate impact on families.
TA providers don't feel there is time built into their contracts to help communities assess the extent to which the strategies they are pursuing will benefit families. |
| Residents as leaders and decision makers |
TA providers help communities find ways to involve residents in the TA process in ways that ultimately help residents build relationships with other stakeholders, become involved in making decisions, and have an opportunity to hold themselves and other stakeholders accountable for what happens in their neighborhoods. |
TA providers assume residents might not be interested in the TA being delivered. TA providers allow communities to involve residents in token ways, but don't give residents an opportunity to participate in the framing of learning objectives or follow-up.
TA providers don't feel they have the extra time needed or the access to identify residents who could be involved in designing and participating in learning opportunities and other TA. |
| Data for decisions |
TA providers help communities gather and use the best information available, and share methods for using that data to make decisions about how to improve outcomes for families and neighborhoods. |
TA providers assume that helping communities assemble and use data is someone else's responsibility, and not part of the job they signed up for.
TA providers assume that if people don't have data, it's not available, or too difficult to obtain. |
| Addressing issues of race, class, and power |
TA providers have the skills needed to recognize and help communities constructively address issues of race, class, language, and power that are often in play when trying to connect families to main stream economic opportunity, high quality services, and informal social networks. |
TA providers aren't comfortable addressing issues of difference and hope that they won't arise and possibly derail TA efforts. TA providers push people past their comfort level, without having thought through the tools and processes they'll use to help people address these issues.
TA providers don't feel they have the resources to invest in developing the skills and approaches necessary to help communities with these issues. |
