Introducing the WWS Model

INTRODUCING

By Hazel Tiffany, Group Partners Ltd. John and I have had the privilege of working with the WWS team for 10 years now and in all that time none of the key members has left the organisation unless through unavoidable circumstances.

This is not simply luck, these individuals have committed themselves to the organisation and they stay their out of love and dedication, they all share a wholehearted commitment to their purpose. It’s rare to see such integrity and authenticity.

Developing a model that can replicate the practical aspects of an organisation’s work is hard work but quite achievable. Recreating the culture, honouring the philosophy and values – things that represent the real differentiator and the reason that anyone visiting is overwhelmed by their work – that is quite another thing.

This is what the team insisted was integral to any model that we helped them design and develop. They know that without it there will be no ‘WWS Way’.

The challenge for anyone intending to develop their own version of this is to take every aspect of model equally seriously, dedicate the right time and energy and ensure that those tasked with its implementation and delivery are given the same opportunities that the WWS leaders had and continue to treasure.

I have never felt authentic culture more strongly than when working with this team. If any team can transfer everything that it takes to scale their amazing work then these are the leaders who will succeed.

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There is a lovely cafe/meeting place in Vaalwater where I love to start my days when visiting WWS. Inside the menu there is a small excerpt from Winnie the Pooh: Piglet: How do you spell love?

Pooh: You don’t spell it, you feel it!

I think Pooh has been to Vaalwater!

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WWS Has One Core Purpose – To Build And Sustain Healthy, Thriving Communities We have developed an holistic model for delivering service to our community. It’s a constant development in truth but it has reached a level of maturity where we we feel able to share this model with others with the confidence that – applied fully – it will serve other communities and help to change people’s lives for the better.

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It will also equip organisations to play their part in delivering their contribution to the national development plan and in meeting the UNAids targets set out in their 90:90:90 strategy http://www.unaids.org/en/resources/ documents/2014/90-90-90.

First we needed to deconstruct what has taken us many years to develop. And to ensure that we combined every aspect of the model that we now call the WWS Way. That means being clear what sits behind the label of an Holistic Model from the perspective of this mission, making sure that we have included everything that matters to build and sustain healthy communities.

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How We Think

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An Holistic Approach To Healthcare Providing healthcare to people living with HIV and AIDS requires us to look well beyond dealing with the primary symptoms.

Prevention is critical to reducing the number of new infections, just as critical as ensuring people on ARV’s adhere to their programmes. Nutrition is another vital aspect in the battle to keep people healthy and able to live a decent quality of life.

And if that wasn’t enough we need to be very mindful of the other chronic illnesses that can impact a patient’s health and trigger resistance to their treatment.

Creating Support Networks Challenges are always easier to deal with when you are not alone. They feel more surmountable when you are tackling them with the support of people you most connect with, people who know what you are going through, who speak your language and have probably been there themselves.

Human beings are very resourceful and creative given the opportunity and in collaborative environments they will regularly find they own answers to problems, solutions that no expert in theory would ever think of and are not written in text books.

In other situations support is simply needed to stay on track, to have people around who understand enough to be able to provide strength at moments of weakness and to act as a conscience when resolve is tested.

Identifying & Defining What Matters Our own journey started with a specific focus on educating those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS in our community. For us that meant people working on the farms, the people employing them, their families and those who lived in the area, regardless of their occupation and status.

It was impossible however to ignore the dynamics surrounding these people – the different circumstances of their lives, the social environment, their beliefs and motivations.

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Providing Safe Environments Asking people to step forward and know their status – no matter how strong the argument – is a big ask. From the point of taking the decision to be tested that person is exposed to stigma, uncertainty, fear – all reasons to want to keep your result hidden from the community and to even live in denial. It’s a daunting prospect for anyone.

Without support networks, ways of getting the right information, access to people who can provide the right advice and counselling it becomes very hard to deal with what the future holds. Having somewhere to meet, being able to get away from pressure and be somewhere safe – where you are not judged or stigmatised can make all the difference in how well people live with their illness.

Safe environments provide the foundation for support networks to thrive and potential to be developed.

Creating Sustainable Livelihoods The impact of HIV and AIDS in people’s lives is immense.

Not just for those directly infected. Children are being forced to quit school to look after their siblings, to become the providers when they should be enjoying an education and a chance to realise their potential. By the time they reach adulthood they have lost so much.

Finding ways to continue with their education, relieving their ‘parenting’ burdens for long enough for them to develop skills and capabilities and then providing them with support and guidance to put their skills into practice is a vital component of building and sustaining thriving communities.

Without livelihoods people will resort to any means to survive and the alternatives inevitably bring risk with them.

And we quickly realised that we could not limit our work to simply teaching people the facts and implications of living with HIV and AIDS, not if we wanted to give them the best possible chances in life.

And so we broadened our focus and learned what mattered beyond education. We ended up with Six Themes that we believe are necessary when dealing with the core problem of HIV/AIDS. These first Four Themes influence the services and programmes that we have created over the years and the way that we implement them.

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UMAN RIGHTS

S N E

P G IN R U

IC H S A B E ’S L P EO

There Are Two Additional Themes All Of The Four Previous Themes

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AN CH In our communities stigma shows up in several ways which is why we need to take a broad approach to education and awareness and help people overcome many types of challenges so that they can believe they have a future and be prepared to take responsibility for their health and wellbeing.

Some of this is imposed on those infected, some is self-imposed. Self stigma has very adverse effects on people living with HIV and AIDS, affecting their mental health and the ability to effectively manage HIV.

ETS

We face many challenges when dealing with illness, especially one such as HIV and AIDS and there are many myths, misconceptions and general misunderstandings that create attitudes which in turn influence behaviour. The result is the stigma that is so readily associated with the illness.

MINDS

Changing Mindsets

GING

That Cut Across

It makes people feel less valuable in their relationships, families, communities and societies.

People with self stigma feel ashamed and guilty of being HIV positive, they may stop seeking treatment and care services, develop emotional distress, selfhatred and fear of disclosing their HIV status.

They think people will discriminate and gossip about them therefore they try to prove themselves more than people who are not living with HIV and AIDS top counter the discrimination.

Ensuring People’s Basic Human Rights It is very easy when you are sick, confused and vulnerable to accept whatever is thrown at you, to believe the worst and not stand up for yourself when others treat you badly. This is why we include this theme in our model.

We place great importance in empowering people to take responsibility for their lives and that means knowing their rights and how to make sure they are respected – in a positive and nonconfrontational manner.

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How We Work

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1. Reducing New HIV Infections

5. Skills Development & Empowerment

3. Creating Positive 4. Early Childhood Development 13

2. Providing Quality Palliative Care

Based On Proven Best Practices Our model is underpinned by a series of frameworks that define what matters and how we apply our practices.

This is a vital dimension of the model; it is the culmination of many years of field work, learning how to create positive change and seeing what works, understanding the challenges, appreciating local cultures – and then combining that experience and insight with the theory and latest research on the topic that we possess and that is shared with us by our academic partners.

We have defined Five Best Practice Frameworks that between them make sure that we take a consistent approach to our services and programmes and support the six cross cutting themes driving our philosophy and approach.

Pathways For Young People At Risk

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There Is A Standard Structure To Each Framework which is based on a series of logical ‘modules’ that represent what we think is important for any organisation to take into account.

WHAT MATTERS

There are always the things that we feel are really important to impress on anyone delivering services or programmes, in this module we are focused on sharing the things that we have learned generally about each practice at the high level.

This is where we can add insights and personal experiences and bring the topic to life – to make it very real and meaningful.

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PRINCIPLES

Supporting the more intangible ‘what matters’ are some very real success factors, the imperatives that must be covered for any outcome to be successful.

You might class these as the ‘table stakes’ without which your results will be less effective at best.

DYNAMICS

The third member of this set focuses on making sure that we understand the particular dynamics for each community and circumstances where we will be providing services.

While our approach is consistent we have to put everything we do into context so that we are choosing the most appropriate approach from our resources.

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THE BEST PRACTICES

Each framework then ‘unpacks’ into the distinct activities that are required in order to achieve what we know matters, take account of what is critical to success and deliver the expected outcomes to the standard set by our measurement models.

EVALUATIONO

NO UTCOMES

We have to know how we will validate that our practices are delivering the outcome we stated and so there is a direct mapping between Outcomes & Measures – which can be tangible and intangible.

A clear set of statements that define what we hope to achieve within this framework overall.

This is supported with outcomes for each best practice that we define.

It is also important that Outcomes & Measures are aligned with national targets.

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Research

Configurable Toolkits Beneath these frameworks lies a wealth of knowledge. It comes in the form of research, data, case studies, tools and techniques. Some of this is publically available, some we have developed ourselves.

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Data

What makes it valuable is the knowledge of how to make best use of this knowledge and in what situations to use it.

Our approach is to configure the capabilities that we need for any specific programme to be successful from these resources.

This can vary significantly between communities and programme needs and it is

Case Studies

important that we select the right tools and techniques for each situation.

Every community has its own unique context and it is vital that those of us serving the community take this context seriously and take the time to truly understand the dynamics that influence it the most.

Tools & Techniques

Best Practices typically fail when we try and apply a standard approach in exactly the same way in every case. There is a big difference between applying a consistent model based on frameworks and forcing the same solution in every scenario.

People

Critical Skills It takes a special mix of skills and qualities to work in this environment and we place huge importance on this dimension of the model.

First it is important to assess that the right people are being

Training

selected and then it is as important that the right training is provided.

For us this means a mixture of sharing our knowledge through documentation and visual tools, and practical experience gained by working alongside our teams, witnessing what they do and learning what it takes.

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Passion For The Purpose As important as the skills is the commitment to what is a very challenging role to take on. Sometimes the hardest thing to ‘bottle’ is the culture and passion of a team that delivers great results. In an environment where emotions are tested to the limit, where efforts may not always be greeted with enthusiasm and your work is associated with all kinds of stigma, it takes real dedication to commit wholeheartedly to this work.

And 100% commitment is what it takes – sometimes more!

To sustain this passion and dedication requires a strong culture that is underpinned by equally strong and empowering leadership. In this environment there is always something new to learn, there are always new techniques that can be applied and the best people to identify and implement them are those out ‘in the field’.

They need to know that they are trusted to use their judgement and encouraged and supported in all their efforts to develop the best programmes and services for the community.

And they need to have a voice, to be heard and their views taken seriously.

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Well Planned Implementation Adopting our model is not a case of receiving a set of documentation and a quick training course. We know what it takes to replicate what we do and we will work with organisations to make sure that they take this responsibility on as equipped and prepared as possible.

Toolkit Specific Needs Assessment

Initial Engagement Capability Development

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Programme Configuration

Configuration

Performance Assessment

Team Assessment

This means working together to build implementation plans that cover every aspect – assessing specific needs, configuring the programme and the toolkits, developing the capability and – for those wishing to replicate the full capability – evaluating and assessing team performance.

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c copyright group partners 2016

For more information or to request a meeting please contact: Lesiba Masibe E: wwslesiba@gmail.com T: + 27 (0) 14 755 3594 M: + 27 (0) 83 576 4522 Zachariah Sekhu E: wwszach@gmail.com T: + 27 (0) 14 755 3633 M: + 27 (0) 72 889 1464

Postal: PO Box 1029, Vaalwater 0530, Limpopo Province, South Africa Address: 209 Waterberg Street, Vaalwater 0530, Limpopo Province, South Africa NPO Registration: 019-865 NPO BBBEE Level One