Item No. 1 of 1

INVESTIGATOR: Joseph, H. M.

PERFORMING INSTITUTION:
THIRD SECTOR NEW ENGLAND, INC.
89 S ST STE 700
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02111

EXPANDING TRAINER SKILLS AND VISUAL-BASED RESOURCES FOR REFUGEE AND OTHER BEGINNING FARMER INCUBATORS

NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY: Over 50 refugee farming incubator projects (RFIPs) nationwide trained over 1000 refugee beginning farmers in 2019. But too many of RFIPs struggle with the training process due to acombination of limited appropriate resources and capabilities to work with challenges audiences.ISED Solutions proposes a national ET collaboration with nine project partners to improve the quality of training materials and T&TA delivery to refugee and other farmers.Project core objectives are to implement a nationwide community of practice (CoP), expand visually-based content for T&TA providers, and develop trainers' skills in adult education and T&TA delivery through training-of-trainers.Core activities will include peer-to-peer engagements through CoPs for both incubator farm staff and farmers, expansion and dissemination of visually-based farmer education content, and skills development through training-of-trainers.These activities should result in ongoing networking and collaboration through CoP networks, 40+ farm incubator programs nationwide downloading and utilizing training resources, 9 RFIPs and 25-30 staff improving T&TA content and delivery, and 600 to 1200 beginning farmers receiving improved T&TA. They will thus expand their knowledge of farming and improve farm business outcomes. These resources will also be widely distributed to reach other beginning farmer incubators and help thousands of other beginning farmers.Other collaborating institutions/organizations:ISED will collaborate with the following programs:(1)Major partner: International Rescue Committee (IRC) - US National office - NYC;(2-5)Four IRC local programs: Tucson, AZ; Sacramento, CA; Seattle, WA; Salt Lake City, UT;(6)Global Growers Network, Decatur, GA;(7)Catholic Charities of Northern Kansas, Kansas City, KS;(8)Lutheran Services of Iowa, Des Moines, IA;(9)Groundswell Center for Local Food & Farming, Ithaca, NY; and,(10)The Nashville Food Project, Nashville.

OBJECTIVES: Overall Goal / Outcome:Strengthen the capabilities of farming incubator projects (9 directly and 30+ more subsequently), toprovide audience-appropriate education & training and technical assistance. This will directly benefit 600-1200 beginning and aspiring farmers in partner projects, up to 1200 more in 30 additional RFIPs, as well as many other beginning farmers and incubators.Obj. 1: Implement a Community of Practice (CoP) approach to all aspects of this initiative:1-a) 30-40 T&TA providers in nine RFIPs engage in peer-to-peer content development, T&TA skills building and delivery, and related assessment and feedback.Obj. 2:Expand visual-basedcontentfor T&TA providers and beginning farmers.2-a) Compile hundreds of high-quality third-party visual resources in open access formats.2-b) Develop at least 100visually-based products using the above individual images.2-c) Pilot testing: RFIPs will use these resources along with enhanced instructional methods for farmer T&TA to provide feedback to improve them as needed.2-d) Dissemination: Post completed on multiple websites resources to make widely availableObj. 3: Skillsdevelopment Training of Trainers:Build the skills of 25-30 staff in nine programs in experiential teaching methods tailored their core farmer audiences.3-a) Identify proficiency standards and targets all targeted skills development3-b) Augmentmultiple teaching and communications proficiencies for partners via training by professional experts in four domains.3-c) Training of trainers - Trained staff disseminate skills development across their projects.3-d)RFIPs use these instructional methods to improve their T&TA delivery for all farmers3-e)Provide associated resources on these skills for ongoing access for all incubators.3-f)Help refugee farmers themselves get directly engaged in their T&TA via WhatApp.

APPROACH: Obj. 2-A:Expand visual-basedcontent:We are building on our prior BFRDP and 2501 content development to address a major gap - content from third parties.There are substantial diverse high-quality visual resources from third-party entities that can be valuable to a range of farmer T&TA to help incorporate more audio-visual content for presentations, hand-outs, posters, online content, etc. Sourcing and assessing these takes considerable time given the enormity of the posted content on websites. ISED staff and interns will extensively vet these resources for appropriateness, availability, and quality, and get partner feedback. They will then be formatted, compiled, and posted for access by our partners, other interested incubators and farmers.i: Food and agricultural clip art: Free-to-use clipart is familiar and easy to apply in many types of T&TA..ii: Product images from agricultural businesses such as seed companies. These photos and graphics are especially valuable to projects or farmers looking to compare categories, types, varieties, brands, etc. of various farm products, and know specifically where they aresourced. We anticipate 300-500 such items will be available once access and usage conditions are worked out.iii: Instructional ('how to') videos, such as for farm equipment. These are best suited to post intact as annotated hyperlinks. Informational videos for beginning farmers are produced by many NGOs, but not well circulated and difficult to source.Obj. 2-B: Image-based development:ISED staff, interns and four partners will use these above resources (especially i and ii) to produce image-based products that often constitute collections from these resources. This includes posters, handouts, PowerPoints, etc. suitable for electronic and/or print formats.Obj. 2-C:Pilot testing:Items will then be piloted by all nine partner RFIPs. They will integrate them into their overall T&TA and expand or diversify T&TA as warranted. Each item will be piloted by at least two RFIPs and feedback will then be provided using a standardized protocol to reflect content, design, usability, farmer appeal, and other factors.Obj. 2-D: Dissemination:A core outcome for this work is to circulate the resources widely and encourage as much use as possible among beginning farmers. Key dissemination steps include:Posting new content via an ISED "image bank" resource library on New Entry and ISED websites and as links the BFRDP Farm Answers website.Publicizing these on major listservs. The PD sponsors and manages several relevant ones, including Refugee Farming and Comfood. OthersNAFSN-L(Ithaca-based), SAWG lists (e.g., Nesawg-Community), Incubatorfarms (Tufts-sponsored).Publish announcements in newsletters and other communications of SARE (e.g.SAREP), (NorthNortheast Organic Farming Association (NOFA); Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES), and the National Agricultural Library (NAL), as well as at relevant farming conferences.Obj. 3-B:Training of trainers in four domains:(a) Visual literacy - focus on photography and video skills:Provider 1:Katrina Sarson (ISED): Half-day workshop in Washington, DC. for up to 25 attendees on using photography and video specifically for beginning farmer T&TA.Ongoing: Providing a series of online forums, individual and group coaching, content and design editing, and production and editing work on visually-based resources.Provider 2:Carrie Patterson, PhD.Full-day workshop, Washington, D.C.for up to 25 attendees on tailoring visual literacy to beginning farmer T&TA.Follow-up:One or two online workshop and 4-5 hours of coaching(b)Plain Language and Plain Speaking:Provider:Health Literacy Leadership Institute, Boston, MA: 2.5-day workshop. Also, two Plain Language / Plain Speaking follow-up webinars and 10 hours of added coaching.(c)Financial literacy:Provider: Dan Krotz. Full-day workshop on applying visually-based T&TA to key aspects of farm enterprise development, along with financial-related life skills.(d)Adult education:Providers:IRC - Aley Kent and Eugenia Gusev.Two full-day workshops onexperiential teaching theory and methods, using new content and strategies integrating farmer-focused ESL and other literacy skill development. We anticipatelinking these to NIFTI beginning farmer field schools to boost attendance to 30+ participants.Coaching of project partner staff in applying ToT to their farmer training practices, and/or in training other staff and partners in the same resource.Obj.3-C :Training of trainers(ToT). Each incubator partner uses team approaches for its T&TA. Thus, each representative attending these trainings is responsible for promoting internal dissemination. This means bring all other staff and associates up to speed with each of these tools and techniques.Obj.3-D /Training of trainers: RFIPs applythese instructional tools:Trainers in all 9 projects will integrate their improved skills and new resources to deliver more appropriate and better designed T&TA. In general, these resources and skills are adaptable to whatever topics and strategies they each use throughout the year.Obj. 3-E: Provide associated resources on these skills for ongoing access for all incubators.Useful guidanceon these subjects are available as books, manuals, videos, and audio formats - some free, others for sale. We will collate lists of these and post them. However, most do not focus specifically on the needs of our audiences.Where companion instructional and informational resources are not available or need adaptation, we will produce concise manuals that focus particularly on the specific needs of RFIPs and beginning farmers. These include:A: Plain Speaking: Little is available on oral literacy, especially this when it comes to beginning English learners. Generally, the focus is on public speaking and such (e.g., plain English) and not low-education and limited language skills. Thus we will work with the Health Literacy Center to produce suitable content for a 15-20 page manual.B: Picture This- Financial literacy: The currentFinancial Curriculumincludes training notes, learning tools, and training tools. TheTraining Notesdetails how to prepare and implement each lesson. TheLearning Toolsconsist of a number of handouts and worksheets to be completed by the students either inside or outside the classroom. ISED, in tandem with an original developer - Dan Krotz - will add this new section focusing on refugee farming enterprise, again incorporating primarily visually-based content. This will be used in the financial literacy workshop and added to ToT resources.C:Adult experiential education:IRChas piloted a "Training of Experiential Teachers" courseto help develop farmer mentors, andwilldevelopit into aresource fortraining staff inincubatorprograms across the country. The curriculum itself uses experiential teaching methods, and is rooted in David Kolb's Experiential Learning Model which posits that learning happens best when a person experiences something new, reflects on the experience, forms a theory about it, and then is able to apply the theory to an actual situation (thereby repeating the cycle of: experience?reflect?generalize?new experience...).Obj. 3-F: WhatsApp: Similarly, farmers with similar backgrounds from across the country will collaborate to share their ideas and experiences via a WhatsApp pilot program.Three WhatsApp groups for beginning immigrant and refugee farmers will get underway, one per year.Groups will be formed by primary language of the participants, to facilitate communication in the languages that make people most comfortable, and to ensure that all farmers who want to participate are able.Each group will be hosted by a farm educator on staff at one of our partner projects and a lead farmer who is able to communicate in the target language(s).