Who? What? How?

This resource was created by the Northwest Regional Educational Lab (NWREL)/Bank Street College (BSC) training team. NWREL/BSC has been a Training and Technical Assistance provider for AmeriCorps*VISTA since 1998. They design and deliver the Pre-Service Orientation (PSO) and the Supervisor Orientation (SO), as well as other events.

NWREL/BSC uses this handout in the Supervisor Orientation. It helps new VISTA supervisors deepen their members' understanding of the cultural groups in their community.

Use this resource to:

• Identify the who, the what and how of your community.
• Help coach your members' community entry process
• Brainstorm community groups to introduce your members to

At the PSO, VISTAs discuss how to successfully enter the culture of their sponsoring organizations. However, they do not discuss community entry. The cultural composition of their communities varies widely. Sponsors and supervisors can best coach community entry for their members.

There are many different cultures in a community that members need to learn about and respect. Culture extends beyond race; it includes religion, age, ethnicity, and sexual orientation.

Begin your community entry discussion by making members aware of the different cultural groups in your community. Which are most closely linked with the member's service assignment?

Click here to access a worksheet that you can use to identify the cultural groups in your community.

Go on to Cultural Effectiveness

Identifying them

This resource was created by the Northwest Regional Educational Lab (NWREL)/Bank Street College (BSC) training team. NWREL/BSC has been a Training and Technical Assistance provider for AmeriCorps*VISTA since 1998. They design and deliver the Pre-Service Orientation (PSO) and the Supervisor Orientation (SO), as well as other events.

NWREL/BSC uses this handout in the Supervisor Orientation. It helps new VISTA supervisors focus their member's community entry process.

Use this resource to:

• Identify the cultural groups in your community
• Prioritize groups for members to learn about
• Help coach your members' community entry

By cultural effectiveness, we mean the ability to respond to, affirm, and value people of all cultures, languages, classes, races, ethnic backgrounds, and religions in ways that protect and preserve their dignity.

Many members are committed to acting with cultural sensitivity and are skillful at it. But being culturally effective is something we do not want to leave to chance. We need to take an active and explicit role in community entry. We want to ensure members are cross culturally respectful and adept at working with other cultures.

Take a minute to reflect on what we mean by "cultural effectiveness." Click and drag the following phrases into the Effective or Ineffective category.

What does cultural effectiveness look like?

Culturally Effective	Culturally Ineffective
Practice listening and observing	Talk before listening
Recruit a cultural guide or coach	Spend a week learning, then get to work
Commit to learning about the visible and less visible aspects of a culture	Never apologize
Wait, ask permission	Demand
Focus first on strengths and assets	Focus first on challenges and problems
Learn from your mistakes	Never make mistakes

Two resources to help coach members through their community entry are:

• Identifying the aspects and resources of the local culture
• Working with a cultural coach or guide

How to find one

Many people have learned about a cultural community through a mentor or coach. This resource was created by the Northwest Regional Educational Lab (NWREL)/Bank Street College (BSC) training team. NWREL/BSC has been a Training and Technical Assistance provider for AmeriCorps*VISTA since 1998. They design and deliver the Pre-Service Orientation (PSO) and the Supervisor Orientation (SO), as well as other events.

NWREL/BSC uses this handout in the Supervisor Orientation. It helps new VISTA supervisors think about how their members could find and work with a cultural coach or guide in their community.

Use this resource to:

• Identify the benefits of working with a cultural coach
• Guide your members to work with a cultural coach

The second training schedule was contributed by Minnesota Alliance With Youth Promise Fellows Program (Minneapolis, MN), an AmeriCorps*State program whose Promise Fellows work with schools and communities managing tutoring, mentoring and service-learning programs.

Service-learning may mean somewhat different things to different individuals and organizations. But, in its essence, service-learning must have these three elements:

1. Clear learning objectives- Learning must be an intentional and important component.
2. Genuine community needs as its goal- The strength of service-learning is that learning is utilized to make a real difference. It is in the genuineness of the work that young people find the power of learning.
3. Systematic reflection- One of the most powerful and important parts of good service-learning is reflection. For more information on reflection and a wealth of resources, see Using Reflection Activities.

The Promoting Service-Learning Excellence Training Manual is a hands-on guide to service-learning developed by ESD112 and Service-Learning Northwest.

Useful Websites
For much more information and resources about service-learning, visit:

• CNCS Learn and Serve America
• Service-Learning Clearinghouse

Go on to Training and Development Topics

An essential part of service is putting experiences in context and learning to find meanings and take action in the face of adversity.

Reflection in service offers members a way to look back at complex problems through a new lens. Using reflection, members examine their experiences, evaluate them, and apply new insights to future experiences. Members build skills necessary for analyzing and solving problems and developing creative solutions.

If members don't reflect, they will simply report on experiences rather than examine how their actions impact themselves and those they serve. Well-designed reflective activities allow members to acquire a deeper understanding of the world around them and how they can make positive contributions to society.

These resources will help you understand and implement reflection activities.

• Reflection by Design is a Service-Learning Northwest six-step manual for how to organize and facilitate reflection training for members.
• The Reflection Toolkit, from the Northwest Service Academy, has guided discussions, facilitator tips, session plans, and other activities.
• For some background and theoretical framework around reflection as it applies to K-12 service-learning, see Reflection: K – 12 Service-Learning by RMC Research Corp.
• The Need for Reflection includes more information about why reflection is so important, plus tips for conducting reflection activities.
• Reflection Ideas Worth Borrowing features ideas for speaking, writing, multimedia and other reflection activities.
• The Council Process provides instructions for this group reflection technique.
• Group Reading provides a process for staging group readings as a reflection activity.
• Youth Volunteer Resume is a reflection activity designed to help youth volunteers create customized volunteer resumes.
• What's Next, a self-guided tutorial designed to help members explore their transition options, also includes a number of interesting prompts for reflection.

Go on to Promoting Service-Learning

Good intentions and boundless energy don't necessarily translate into successful outcomes. The best initiatives can lead nowhere if there is no vision or a plan to achieve the project's goals. Effective project management consists of visioning, project planning, and facilitation.

Visioning resources

• Visioning is a two-hour training in which participants create vision statements for individual or team projects and learn the value of visioning for leaders and in project planning. This module can be used alone or as part of a larger Leadership curriculum.

Facilitation resources

• Facilitation is a one-day training in which participants learn a structure for facilitating team project planning meetings. This module can be used alone or as part of a larger Leadership curriculum.
• The Effective Facilitation Training Packet includes information and tips to help members understand the core practices and important skills of an effective facilitator.

Project planning resources

• Project Planning consists of a curriculum and handouts created by Service-Learning Northwest, which operates a number of school-based programs in Washington state, that you can use to help members organize their ambitions into actionable plans. This module can be used alone or as part of a larger Leadership curriculum.
• One of the most exciting aspects of being a part of a National program is serving together on National service days. Plan your team day using the planning documents above and give your member a calendar of National service days.

Go back to Training and Development Topics

A key component of your training program is providing the information and skills that members need to perform their service effectively. Training should also focus on ensuring members' physical, mental, and emotional well-being.

The Northwest Service Academy/Mt. Adams Center–a small, rural and remote program in Washington that does environmental projects–suggests these tips for wellness trainings:

• Familiarize members with your risk management plan, which details your organization's response to potential risks. These plans vary from one program to another, but all programs should have one. Read an example of the Northwest Service Academy/Mt. Adams Center plan here.
• Give members training in conflict resolution so they are prepared to deal with challenging situations. See the Conflict Resolution page for existing training and tips. Look for additional training resources at the Conflict Resolution Information Source and Association for Conflict Resolution. Your state commission, state CNCS office, or national direct headquarters might have a list of trainers in your area that they can share with you.
• Offer training in cultural issues that goes beyond general diversity awareness and focuses on specific topics that affect your clients. Members need to understand these fundamental issues before they can take action.
• Prepare members for the stress that can result from service. For example, some members will be challenged by living on a limited stipend and will need tips for simple living.
• Consider providing a basic first aid course and CPR training. The American Red Cross can help provide a local trainer.

Some of these resources can also be used with clients, or at the project site.

Useful Websites

• National Mental Health Information Center

Go back to Training and Development Topics

During the service year, you call on your members to take a prominent role in the community: Organizing and facilitating meetings, resolving conflicts, understanding all the stakeholders' perspectives, setting an example with attitude and action, following through on commitments, etc. Taken together, these skills amount to one thing: Leadership.

The training modules below can be used as stand-alone half-day training sessions or as part of a multi-day leadership training for members. You can also pass along these modules to your member leaders so that they can replicate these trainings for additional member and service site audiences.

Getting started:

Expectations and Agreements–Learn how to encourage a group to lay the foundation for their learning environment

Life Maps–Participants get to know one another through this activity in which they chart the path that led them into service

Balloon Castles–Participants learn about themselves as communicators, team members, and leaders through this activity

Leadership Compass–Participants learn how their personality preferences lend themselves to leadership styles.

Skill Building:

Facilitation–Participants learn a structure for facilitating team project planning meetings.

Visioning–Participants create vision statements for individual or team projects and learn the value of visioning for leaders and in project planning.

Project Planning–Participants engage in a structured process for inclusive team planning of service projects.

Asset-Based Community Development–Participants learn how they can serve as a convener of community members and a catalyst for change.

Interpersonal Leadership Skills:

Coaching–Participants learn approaches to coaching others in a learning environment.

Situational Leadership–Participants learn about themselves and others as they pass through various stages of enthusiasm and competence in a given situation.

Conflict management–Strategies for easing conflict in team settings.

Go back to Training and Development Topics

Members will face many situations where teamwork plays a critical role: whether it's working together on an environmental project that requires lots of strong hands or inspiring young people to collaborate on a community service project.

By not providing opportunities for cooperation, we run the risk of further polarizing people, increasing misunderstandings, and sabotaging our own best efforts at implementing positive change.

Using games and other collaborative activities in trainings can be a great way for members to practice cooperation.

A list of "do's":
When modeling the exercises, it's important to:

1. Be playful at the right times.
2. Believe in people and focus on the positive.
3. Understand that many group members may be reluctant to join in or may be afraid of "looking stupid."
4. Emphasize that the leader is willing to take the same risks as the other participants-he or she plays as well as facilitates.
5. Be willing to relax and have fun.

These resources can help you successfully facilitate game activities:

• Stages of a Game outlines essential components of any game activity and includes useful tips for facilitating games in training.
• Leave It at the Stream illustrates how to use "feed-forward" instead of feedback to get good results.

See Member Team Projects for ideas and resources for projects that further develop teamwork while getting the job done.

For additional team tools, visit Teampedia, a collaborative encyclopedia of team building activities, icebreakers, teamwork resources, and tools for teams that anyone can edit.

Go on to Using Reflection Activities

In the course of their service, members are apt to confront situations that are rife with conflict—whether it is personal, or differences in opinion on approaches to community issues. Conflicts among individuals have derailed many teams and organizations. Conflicts also present a test of leadership, in that it often takes skilled leadership to get the crew back on track.

Use the following resources and training modules to help members learn how to deal effectively with conflict:

Leadership Practices for Conflict Management provides participants a lens to see how they and others approach conflict, as well as strategies for facilitating a resolution to conflict. How to Have a Productive Conflict provides tips for how to behave in a conflict situation.

Useful Websites

• The Resource Center
• Conflict Resolution Information Sources
• Association for Conflict Resolution

Go back to Training and Development Topics

Active citizenship is about personal and community empowerment. It's more than simply casting a ballot in elections, performing service, organizing, or even social action. But together, behaviors, attitudes, and actions define active citizens and help them address community needs and effect positive change.

Well-trained members can be a significant influence and resource in spreading an expanded awareness of active citizenship and civic engagement.

To help you in such training, this section contains two well-developed resources designed by the Northwest Service Academy (NWSA), Washington Service Corps (WSC), and Service-Learning Northwest (SLN):

Roadmap to Civic Engagement–This extensive publication by WSC and SLN offers seven units that "cultivate an understanding of the behaviors, attitudes, and actions that reflect concerned and active membership in a community." The Roadmap provided the structure for 800 AmeriCorps members to civically engage up to 1,000 young people in service-learning projects.

Download individual units that contain meaningful lessons, activities, and reflections. Read an independent evaluation of the Roadmap.

Community Action Project–NWSA requires all members who serve 900 hours or more to lead a Community Action Project (CAP) that speaks to their vision of society. The CAP can be linked to direct service, education and outreach, or policy analysis. It provides an experiential understanding of how an individual can create positive change. Download the CAP Project Proposal Guide and Reporting Form that helps members identify and research projects. The Policy Analysis Projects guides members through planning their projects, building public support, and conducting and concluding the project.

Other Resources:

Another way to fold a continuous civic engagement strand into your yearly training schedule is to regularly bring members together to read and discuss selected readings on civic engagement. See how one program uses their Meaning of Service training in just such a way.

• Does Service Increase Civic Skills? is a research study about the impact of service on civic skills.
• Just Cause is a research study about how to motivate young people to volunteer.
• Oral History Projects includes two trainings designed to create a culture of civic engagement while helping members learn about the communities they serve.

Go back to Training and Development Topics

Adapting leadership styles to meet changing situations

Situational Leadership provides a simple and effective framework for understanding the transformation that takes place as AmeriCorps members and volunteers go from the enthusiastic beginner to the peak performer stage. It also offers strategies for adapting leadership styles to meet changing needs in that process over time.

Use this resource with members to:

• Understand the situational leadership model, including the four stages of the skill development process and the supervision styles that best suit each stage
• Identify the supervisory styles that are most and least natural to them
• Experience using supervisory styles that do not match developmental needs, and practice adapting styles to facilitate better matches with needs

This training module was adapted from the Northwest Leader Corps training curriculum written and compiled by Nicole Trimble.

How to generate ideas, resolve conflicts, and enhance teamwork

In this training module, participants gain an understanding and self-confidence in the basics of coaching and motivating others to perform their best. Participants take home a strategic process for guiding a coaching session.

Use this resource with members to:

• Learn about circumstances in which coaching can bring about benefits
• Practice specific coaching skills
• Identify their strengths and growth opportunities

Coaching was adapted from the Northwest Leader Corps training curriculum written and compiled by Nicole Trimble.

Using visioning techniques to become better leaders

Visioning is an indispensable skill for leaders to have, as individuals and as members of a team. It's an early step toward getting things done.

Use this resource with members to:

• Learn about the value of visioning in leadership and project planning
• Learn a shared visioning and an individual reflection/vision process
• Develop a vision statement for a project or a personal challenge they are working on

This training module was adapted from the Northwest Leader Corps training curriculum written and compiled by Nicole Trimble.

Benefiting teams and projects by using effective practices

Effective facilitation is a means to involve all parties and points of view in an empowering process, while demonstrating leadership in action. Learn effective facilitation skills in this one-day training.

Use this resource with members to:

• Define concepts around mindful facilitation and describe how it relates to effective work in their organizations/communities
• Identify problem meeting behaviors (individual and group) and learn effective prevention and intervention strategies
• Identify and practice three key ingredients for effective and mindful facilitation
• Learn and use a feedback cycle that aids teamwork and provides coaching practice

This training module was adapted from the Northwest Leader Corps training curriculum written and compiled by Nicole Trimble.

Understanding your approach and how it differs from others'

The Leadership Compass provides participants a tool for understanding how they approach work and how it can differ from how others approach work. One key to effective leadership is to be flexible within your own work style and receptive to others whose styles differ from your own.

Use this resource with members to:

• Develop understanding and appreciation of each other's work styles and approaches
• Promote a deeper sense of team and teamwork
• Acquire a tool and language to help members work more effectively in teams and within organizations

This training module was adapted from the Northwest Leader Corps training curriculum written and compiled by Nicole Trimble.

Facilitating teamwork and active learning

This training module includes an introduction to the DIGA experiential learning model, the ORP (Outcomes, Relationships, Procedure) model and reinforces the group's understanding of these concepts by providing a team-based activity.

Use this resource with members to:

• Learn a model for outcome-driven teamwork
• Engage in a hands-on activity to illustrate concepts of teamwork and planning
• Engage in an experiential learning feedback cycle to evaluate what works and what needs work in a teamwork setting

Balloon Castles was adapted from the Northwest Leader Corps training curriculum written and compiled by Nicole Trimble.

Know the members of your team…and yourself better

This is an activity designed to help members of a group get to know one another better. When conducted at the beginning of a leadership training, it builds trust among team members and sets the stage for more indepth later activities.

Use this resource with members to:

• provide opportunity to learn about one another and what they have in common
• provide opportunity to see themselves as a team
• set the stage for more indepth leadership activities

This training module was adapted from the Northwest Leader Corps training curriculum written and compiled by Nicole Trimble.

Supporting teams and leaders with clear expectations and agreements

This activity is designed to open a training day to lead a group through a democratic process of generating a set of expectations of what they would find most useful in the session and/or training as well as their thoughts on what the process might look like. The group members also compose a set of agreements that set forth the ground rules for a successful learning environment and achieving their expectations.

Use this resource with members to:

• Create an open, safe, and democratic learning environment
• Empower the learners by giving them a voice in how the activities unfold
• Give participants an opportunity to learn about one another and what they have in common
• Provide participants a tool for when they facilitate meetings/trainings in the field

This training activity was adapted from the Northwest Leader Corps training curriculum written and compiled by Nicole Trimble.

Proactively addressing potential risks

Use this resource to develop or adapt your own risk management plan.

This risk management plan was created by the Northwest Service Academy — Mt. Adams Center to provide guidance for the trainings, preparations, and policies implemented for team leaders, team members, and field staff for all activities related to working in "the field." The Mt. Adams Center is one of the few AmeriCorps p