The Tools

In this hypothetical scenario, we observe how a fictional local Joining Forces team approached the adaptation and scale-up processes of a fictional intervention (“Better Schools/Safer Children”). The purpose of this scenario is to illustrate the points at which, during this intervention’s selection and implementation, the different tools in this quickstart guide might be relevant. These points are marked with a mention of the tool(s) in red superscript. In the case of Better Schools/Safer Children we see that all the tools are being used. But in a real-world application of this guide, some of the tools may not be needed or may be substituted by other means with which the local team is familiar³.

Staff from local Joining Forces offices in the Republic of Mandinara are interested in expanding the EVAC activities in the country and are strategizing on how to do that. The GOM is a Pathfinding country and committed to establishing a government-civil society body to oversee EVAC programming throughout the country and they have drafted a national action plan that sets out a vision and proposes priorities for supporting and coordinating local EVAC activities. The national action plan is strong in some respects, but not well developed in others. Joining Forces participates in the national EVAC body, but it does not meet very frequently.

In thinking about expanding its role in Mandinara the local Joining Forces team is considering a wide range of interventions/ activities. Some of them have been piloted by a Joining Forces partner in Mandinara, some other potential candidates for scale have been piloted by Joining Forces partners in other countries and have data showing them to be effective, and other EVAC activities in Mandinara that international donors are enthusiastic about have been piloted by non-Joining Forces’ organizations. Another consideration is that the GOM has a longstanding and close advisory relationship with two large INGOs that do not normally focus on EVAC but are interested in entering the area. ^{Tool #1}

Using tools in the Joining Forces Quick Start Guide to the Adaptation and Scale Up of Programmes, the local Joining Forces team settled on an intervention that one of the Joining Forces partners had piloted in the East of the country.^{Tools #2/3/9} The program (“Better Schools/ Safer Children”—or BSSC) is one in which there are several interventions/activities including teacher training in counseling, more school policies relating to bullying, girls clubs and boys clubs that encourage respect for diversity and gender equity, and improved parent-teacher communication. BSSC has only been in place for three years and although it has not been evaluated thoroughly, administrators, teachers and students are very positive about what they are seeing and believe they have adequate evidence of its effectiveness.^{Tools #3/9} Parents are less engaged and less positive, however, and the Joining Forces partner who piloted BSSC is not sure what to do about that. In addition, BSSC implementers disagree on the value the parent-teacher component adds others to the intervention. Some think it is a critical component that needs to be improved, but others think it is expensive and not critical to success in the current site, but they recognize that it could be more critical if BSSC is scaled to Western Mandinara State (WMS) as parenting programs are widespread and entrenched.Tools ^#4/6/9

The local branch of a major international donor is interested in expanding to WMS and they have high expectation that many more children will benefit from BSSC.^{Tool #1}

Thus far, tools in the Quick-start Guide have been used to determine the basic desirability and viability of an adapted version of BSSC.^{Tools #1/2/3/6} Having settled on a general approach to adapting BSSC it becomes clearer the role that each partner within Joining Forces will take and it is important that all local partners share an understanding of each organization’s responsibilities and have some assurance that they are equipped to meet those responsibilities.^{Tool #5} As a result of a divisionof-labor analysis, the local Joining Forces team is generally confident that BSSC is a good choice for adaptation and scale and that Joining Forces has the capacity to adapt it, but they are still unclear on which elements within BSSC are essential (or “core”) or peripheral and can be modified or discarded to fit Western Mandinarian contextual realities without losing fidelity to the BSSC model. As they prepare to think more deeply about the kind of adaptation that will be required, the local Joining Forces team sees the need to anticipate the position of EVAC stakeholders nationally as well as locally and the politics and events in WMS that they must navigate.^{Tools #6/9}

Given all the planning that has been done thus far, the local Joining Forces team feels their basic “scaling strategy” is taking shape in terms of scale-worthiness, personnel, and approach. They can now turn their attention to practical matters of determining how well—and how quickly—they (in collaboration with their GOM and donor partners) can scale BSSC within WMS.^{Tools #7/8} The local Joining Forces team has to determine not only the sites to which they will scale in the course of a 3-year project, but the number and types of schoolchildren that will benefit from BSSC over that period.Tools ^#8/9 Just as importantly (and perhaps even more importantly to sustain BSSC after the funding ends) the local Joining Forces team wants to ensure that BSSC has been integrated into the EVAC systems (e.g., systems of government, educational supervision, curriculum, budgets, local and state policy, etc.) in WMS.^{Tools #7/9}

Throughout the adaptation and scale-up process, the local Joining Forces team has been learning lessons about what has worked when adapting and scaling, what has not worked, and in which situations. They have routinely been using Quick-start tool #9 to record these lessons so that they use them to monitor their own decision-making processes, provide concrete examples of success and challenges in reports to donors and in program evaluation, and contribute to a Global Joining Forces archive of lessons learned when adapting and scaling EVAC activities. They have also seen that it is useful to document future actions that are warranted by these learnings and tracks the extent to which those actions have been implemented.^{Tool #9}

_{3 When a tool in the Quick-start Guide is mentioned in red after an issue is raised in the scenario, it means that the tool will be useful in deciding on matters as they relate to that issue. Note that many tools may be usefully used and reviewed repeatedly at several points in the adaptation and scale process. Note too there is no assumption that every project needs to use every tool. Finally, because this is a “quick-start” guide, these are basic tools designed for the context of Joining Forces and other tools may be useful. Such tools can be found in the INSPIRE Guide to Adaptation and Scale Up https://adaptationandscale.inspire-strategies.org}