● “ We co-developed with land
managers and ranchers rain gauge designs that would work specifically for them. And then we built online tools to help them collect and analyze the data. ” (R04) ● “ People thought it was like rocket science, even though it was not. It was such obvious participatory facilitation, and it really affected people because they had real conversations about what mattered ... Most people love to talk
Photo by Andrew Ly on Unsplash.
about the past and they can remember everything. They can remember the big flood of this year and the drought of that year, and they also brought up a lot of the local knowledge that they have.” (R13) ”Soft” Skills & Interpersonal Competencies Interview respondents emphasized that so-called “soft” skills and interpersonal competencies are fundamental elements for effective and sustained Extension C/EW program delivery. They attributed their successes broadly to honest efforts to relate to their collaborators and clientele, listen actively and empathically to a diversity of stakeholders in their work, foster and maintain civil and mutually respectful dialogue in their interactions, and stay committed to finding areas of common ground fertile for progress. ● “For me success is when we value everyone at the table for what they bring and even if they don't bring anything, if they just bring questions. Or if they just bring even the ‘blocker’, who is blocking everything …he has a role in the group to help us learn.” (R13) ● “I had some programmatic stuff that I could help with as I was getting off the ground. I took this as the tasks of doing a lot of meetings, driving around, and a lot of listening the first couple of years to try to sort out what I was hearing on the ground. As far as working with my other Extension colleagues, the agents in the counties, and working with the county Directors on what they might be interested in… My personality is I want to listen and then respond and so that ended up being the way the program developed. I tried to be responsive to what I heard and that largely was successful. ” (R04) ● “ We work with the leadership in the community as well as the residents to understand that what they're doing today is going to affect their grandchildren and their great grandchildren and we get them to start focusing on intergenerational equity ...you know, what are you doing today? And think about what impact you're going to have on the future. So, a lot of what we do is really facilitation, raising the level of awareness. ” (R15)
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