By Tatiana Rincón, Director of Economic Citizenship Division for Latin America and the Caribbean, Fundacíon Capital & Austine Gasnier, Senior Operations Manager, Fundacíon Capital
At Fundación Capital we think a key element of the Graduation Approach, is the contact between program participants and the field staff in charge of implementing the program. In most social projects, participants’ success depends on the “coaching performance” of the staff working with them.
The best trainers and coaches are often the “peers” who live in the same communities, have experienced similar situations, and are able to “teach through example.” Peer to peer learning reinforces the idea that it is possible to “succeed” despite local difficulties, and that it is possible to “transform the future” (the title of the Graduation Program implemented by the government of Colombia). Peers that come from the same communities speak the same language and, use the same cultural codes. However, peers may lack some of the technical skills needed to coach other people.
How can we increase peer’s technical skills? How can we improve field worker’s coaching performance? How to reduce the costs of coaching without affecting the salaries of coaches in order to scale-up graduation? Some answers to these questions are found in technology.
Fundación Capital, with the support of the Ford Foundation, developed for the government of Colombia an e-coaching system that is based on two components: an e-course for training the coaches and the use of tablets among participants to support the coaches. The goal is to streamline the coaching component, increase its effectiveness and reduce costs in order to achieve scale.
(1) Training the field staff. Fundación Capital has developed an on-line course with all the specific components of the project. The field workers have to study the contents of each module and pass exams on the modules. Following correction of the exams, if the field workers still have difficulties, a traditional class in the field is arranged in order to address questions or confusion. Through the course it is possible to check if field workers have the necessary skills before they coach the families. For scaling up this system reduces considerably the costs of traditional staff training.
(2) Training the participants. Fundación Capital has also introduced entertainment tablet-based training modules for self-learning. By using tablets, participants train themselves in parallel with the implementation of their productive activity. The modules cover themes such as developing microbusinesses, financial education, and personal development. The modules also include educational games, and inspirational videos featuring successful peers. At the beginning of each module, participants enter their ID number and confirm their GPS coordinates, so that the project staff can follow their progress online. At the end of each module, participants are presented with the rules of thumb to help strengthen the training content through different channels, including asset-building with coaches during in-home visits. Each module ends with an evaluation.
The use of tablets for training both staff and participants has many advantages: It guarantees the quality of the content regardless minimizing dependence on the personal training abilities of a given field staff. It reduces costs, for the program, as well as for participants who can choose when to do their training module. It contributes to closing the digital gap and empowers families who have never before had access to a tablet. It enables participants to learn at their own pace, as modules can be repeated as often as needed until content is internalized. It involves other household members, especially children, creating a spillover effect.
You can get a closer look at how Fundación Capital´s e-coaching system works by watching our video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0FLUjdcMAY&list=UUJOYE5zyT5bvT6EaHgbfUaQ
