Welcome to
Community life competence

Sign Up
or Sign In

Connect with us

Website: the-constellation.org

Newsletter English, French Spanish

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Constellation/457271687691239

Twitter @TheConstellati1

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/constellationclcp/

Youtube channel: The Constellation SALT-CLCP

Phil's Blog (59)

SALT visits; the usual way and the SALT way

I would like to share with you a story that comes from Luc Barrière-Constantin about SALT visits. It helps me to be very clear about the difference between my 'usual' way of doing things and the possibility of doing different. Luc is a founding member of the Constellation and currently works for UNAIDS in Tanzania.

In his story he compares two visits that he made to the Karyako Health Centre in Kigali, Rwanda. In his first visit that he made in 1994, he came as an expert…

Continue

Added by Phil on April 25, 2010 at 11:30am — No Comments

The power of appreciation in SALT

How do we know that appreciating strengths works? Well, I know. I am absolutely clear of its power. Here is how I know.

I have told this story twice within the Constellation and on each occasion I have felt a little embarrassed and uncomfortable. But what happened was for me so powerful and changed what I do that I thought I would share it here.

My wife was a governor at our local secondary school. It is quite a large school with about 1,400 pupils. Well, as sometimes happens, there was…

Continue

Added by Phil on April 17, 2010 at 9:35pm — 7 Comments

More on SALT and appreciating strengths

I want to describe a way that I use to appreciate strengths. It helps me. Perhaps it can help others.

In a previous blog, I described how I came to understand one element of SALT as the idea that I needed to learn from an engagement with a community.

Before I start I would like to explain a little about my attitude toward knowledge. In a world that values knowledge perhaps this explanation will cause some surprise. I do not value knowledge highly. It takes time and effort to…

Continue

Added by Phil on April 9, 2010 at 5:47pm — 1 Comment

SALT and learning

The L is SALT is for Learning. For me, this part of the acronym had the most immediate and powerful impact on how I did things.

I first heard about SALT when I visited Ian and Alison Campbell at the Salvation Army Headquarters in London in (I think) February 2004. I had heard a lot about Ian and Alison before the visit, but that did little to prepare me for the flood of ideas and energy that I encountered that afternoon. It took me a long time to take in all of them. But…

Continue

Added by Phil on April 2, 2010 at 3:29pm — 10 Comments

SALT and appreciating strengths

Last week, I reflected on whether by appreciating STRENGTHS we failed to appreciate the individual or the community in all of their diversity. Here are some thoughts that have been developing during the week.

I wish that I had learned many years ago about the power of appreciating strengths. I think that it is fair to say that it has transformed my life. I want to be clear about how I understand the idea. It is not that I move away from analysing weaknesses. It is not that I seek to balance…

Continue

Added by Phil on March 28, 2010 at 1:44pm — No Comments

Exploring SALT visits and SALT behaviours....part 2

With SALT, we 'appreciate strengths'. Why do we appreciate STRENGTHS? Why don't we appreciate individuals for all of their traits, weak or strong? Are we failing to appreciate the full glory of our humanity by focusing on strengths?

A story.

When my children were growing up in England, I was one of the coaches in the local football team. Each year, for each year-group we selected the best players to make up 2 teams and that was it. Those best players became the players in the…

Continue

Added by Phil on March 19, 2010 at 1:30pm — 5 Comments

Exploring SALT visits and SALT behaviours

I would like to explore some aspects of a SALT visit (and SALT behaviours) that intrigue me and that puzzle me. To some extent this is a personal exploration, but I would be very intrigued to hear the thoughts of others.

I want to explore the power that comes from letting go of hierarchical relationships during a SALT visit. When a group of visitors merges with a group of visited so that the distinctions between them (us) fade away, the opportunities to learn from each…

Continue

Added by Phil on March 15, 2010 at 11:57am — 6 Comments

Learning about Appreciation from outside the Constellation

In my work outside the Constellation, I have just learned a very powerful lesson about Appreciation. I thought I would share it.

I have been working with a colleague quite closely over the last 12 months. Recently, I commented to her that I always seemed to learn a lot from her even though we often seemed to look at things in different ways.

Her comment was that even when she couldn’t understand my point of view she felt very confident that I had thought about it carefully… Continue

Added by Phil on October 12, 2009 at 9:07am — 2 Comments

The Evolution from AIDS Competence to Community Life Competence

This is an exploration. Please read it as such.

In the AIDS Competence Self Assessment framework, we have 10 practices. The first six are related to AIDS Competence (with the emphasis on AIDS) and the last four are related to AIDS Competence (with the emphasis on Competence).

When we talk about the practice of ‘Access to Treatment’, we are dealing with the specific issues related to AIDS. But when we are talking about ‘Mobilising Resources’, we are dealing… Continue

Added by Phil on October 9, 2009 at 4:40pm — 2 Comments

Do we need to measure change? Perhaps we should assess our progress.

Recently I was asked for my thoughts about the difference between Appreciative Inquiry (AI) and SALT. There is a mountain of material on AI on the web and I read some of it. As I was going through it, it seemed to me that 2 words that people kept linking with AI were ‘change’ and ‘empower’.

If I were looking for a distinction for what the Constellation does, it would be easy to talk about empower, but I stayed with the idea of ‘change’. Many people claim to be able to make change… Continue

Added by Phil on September 25, 2009 at 5:04pm — 2 Comments

Learning to listen more carefully

Recently I have had the pleasure of spending time at 2 meetings with, let us call him, John from Uganda.

After a little while, I noticed that John had the habit of quietly raising his hand (yes, it is possible to raise your hand quietly) and asking a question.

And often the question was about someone else's question. Had we understood this question correctly? And, if so, had the answer that had been given to this question been satisfactory? And very often, the answer to… Continue

Added by Phil on August 7, 2009 at 3:55pm — 8 Comments

A gift...of hugs and many wonderful things...from Rwanda

Last week, I was part of a GLIA event in Rwanda. During the week, we made a SALT visit to a village called Ruhuha. This was about 90 minutes drive away from the capital, Kigali. The visit was remarkable in so many ways that it is very difficult to know where to start. But I will try.

In the village, a group of orphans had decided that they would work together to meet the challenges that they faced. So when we met them, one group was working to produce clothing for sale to the public.… Continue

Added by Phil on July 24, 2009 at 5:38pm — 1 Comment

A reflection on the T in SALT

For some time now I have had a personal discomfort with the T is for Transform in SALT. So I thought I would raise the issue.

I am very comfortable with the idea that as a member of a SALT Team, I Support, I Appreciate, I Learn and I Transfer.

But I do not Transform.

And I do not Transform at 2 levels.

First of all, I do not Transform people. If people are transformed (which I will question later), then they transform themselves. I neither claim nor… Continue

Added by Phil on January 3, 2009 at 10:24am — 6 Comments

A Christmas Story

I would like to tell you of something that happened to me this week that has given me immense pleasure. I don't know that it has got much to do with AIDS Competence, but never mind.

During the week a friend fowarded an e-mail from one of her friends about a review of a book called 'The Living Mountain' by a woman called Nan Shepherd. It was a reprint of a book that had been out of print for a long time. The book is about the Cairngorm Mountains in the north of Scotland and as my… Continue

Added by Phil on December 21, 2008 at 7:17pm — 1 Comment

Building the Dream: An example of its power and a reflection on a problem.

Earlier this month, I was fortunate enough to take part in a Constellation workshop organised by Belcompetence in Brussels. During Friday afternoon and Saturday a wonderfully diverse group of about 30 people introduced themselves to the AIDS Competence process.

There were many things I could write about the weekend, but this note is about Building the Dream, the first step in the Constellation process. I thought about writing it immediately after the weekend, but I decided to give… Continue

Added by Phil on June 23, 2008 at 4:00pm — No Comments

Some thoughts from last week

Here are some thoughts based around what I have done and the conversations I've had over the last week.

1. In a conversation with Jean-Louis on Friday, we mused that we did not have a vocabulary to articulate strengths. I guess that what we are saying is that our vocabulary is not well developed. It's a bit like trying to discuss wine. We are all comfortable to say that is good or not so good, but we (I) find it very difficult to describe what is good about it and what is not so good… Continue

Added by Phil on June 16, 2008 at 11:08am — 7 Comments

Trust the development experts...all 7 billion of them.

Trust the development experts...all 7 billion of them. This is the title of an article in the Financial Times published on 29 May 2008 by William Easterly.

The article is a criticism of the report of the World Bank Growth Commission. This represents the work of a huge number of people giving their views on what countries need to do in order… Continue

Added by Phil on June 1, 2008 at 10:09pm — 3 Comments

The virtue of home visits

This is a transcript of today's '60 second Science' podcast from Scientific American.

"When it comes to saving lives, a personal touch can sometimes work better than drugs alone. That’s what researchers in Uganda found, in a study published in the journal the Lancet. Scientists studied the efficacy of home visits to AIDS patients in rural areas that aren’t served by clinics. Lay workers with no clinical training visited patients weekly to provide potent anti-AIDS… Continue

Added by Phil on March 25, 2008 at 8:51am — No Comments

An example of effective communication.

I want to describe a piece of remarkably effective communication. I know that it is effective because just 2 messages have changed my behaviour and I am confident that those 2 messages have changed my behaviour for ever. I've been talking about this with a variety of people over the last few weeks and I've been trying to understand what it means for how the Constellation communicates.

I got the first message from a poster. As far as I can remember it was a simple black text on a… Continue

Added by Phil on March 20, 2008 at 11:33am — 4 Comments