PART THREE: USING AN ENGAGED/HYBRID MODEL
An engaged approach to program delivery can be used to achieve the following:
To achieve better learning outcomes To build and strengthen relationships
To develop and improve program support To provide solutions that are more sustainable (Vines, 2018).
When looking at greater engagement, it is important to consider how community is defined. For internal organizational change initiatives, ‘community’ would be the system, organization, or institution looking to be impacted. A community may also be defined in terms of geography, an industry or a virtual space. You may consider an interest-based community (your topic) within a specific geographic region (county, region, or state). he processes described in this paper can benefit various types of change initiatives in many types of communities.
PART FOUR: SHARED EXPERTISE, SHARED LEARNING
The engaged approach of program delivery emphasizes both shared learning and shared expertise. If you are sharing expertise, you are not expected to give up your expertise, but to recognize that there are other sources of expertise. For instance, as a county educator your overarching expertise that you bring to multiple communities may be your ability to bring people together and facilitate tough discussions. Or if you are working in an area related to your field of study, your expertise may be more discipline-related. Similarly, other members of your community have expertise they contribute. In an engaged model we respect these multiple sources of expertise and provide an environment where people contribute based on their specific understanding. So, as in the example of multiple sources of expertise of the agent, a community member may have subject matter expertise in addition to providing expertise related to the local context of the community. In addition, because of Extension’s connection to the land grant system, there are sources of content expertise that can be accessed as needed to contribute to developing community solutions that would otherwise be inaccessible to those communities.
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