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Organizing a Peer Assist

Created Mar 30 2021, 5:13 PM by Communities Reinvented
  • Member Engagement

Summary:

  • A Peer Assist is a type of Community Event whose purpose is for community members to receive feedback or ideas on a challenge they are facing or a problem they are trying to solve.
  • Use a Peer Assist to help a community member with a problem or challenge by tapping into the collective wisdom of the larger community.
  • To lead an effective Peer Assist, consider following or adapting the suggested flow below. 

What is a Peer Assist?

A Peer Assist is a type of community event whose purpose is for community members to receive feedback or ideas on a challenge they are facing or a problem they are trying to solve. There are many different variations of the Peer Assist format. (For example, check out the Case Clinic format.) This article describes one of the ways in which you can organize and run a Peer Assist. 


Why would you organize a Peer Assist? 

Organize a Peer Assist when you want to: 

  • Help a community member with a problem or challenge by tapping into the collective wisdom of the larger community.
  • Build more intimate relationships between a small group of people - when people help each other out, it creates a sense of solidarity and connection.
  • Facilitate an opportunity for members to provide support and feedback to any immediate challenges or issues they are facing.
  • Help one organization or country to learn from other organizations or countries who might be experiencing similar challenges.
  • Help one community member to learn from other community members who may have faced a similar situation.


How do you organize a Peer Assist?

Consider the following aspects of running a Peer Assist:

Logistics/Preparation

  • Keep it small: 6-12 people (although you could go up to 15-20 if you split people into multiple groups) 
  • Allocate 45-60 minutes
  • Could be a regular feature of a larger event (such as a Community Roundtable, condensed to 30 minutes, for example), or its own event 
  • Could rotate from country to country or organization to organization


Agenda

A standard agenda of a Peer Assist includes the following elements: 

  • Introduction [3 min]: ‘presenter’ talks about the challenge, providing the most relevant context.

  • Clarifying questions [3 min]: the group may ask clarifying questions that the ‘presenter’ answers very briefly. Note: only take a few, otherwise you will spend most of the time on clarifying questions. It’s NOT important that the group knows all the details. 

    • Prepare guiding questions. 

    • Reframe the key question (if necessary) to be more specific. 

  • Q-storming: [10 min] group brainstorms deeper questions (note: questions must start with “What” and “In what ways”) that would help the ‘presenter’ with their challenge. Write questions on a whiteboard, or in a shared document. Presenter takes notes as necessary. Facilitator redirects if questions do not start with “what” or “in what ways”.

  • Presenter reflection: [2 min] (optional) presenter may share briefly at this time what’s coming up for them after hearing the group’s questions.

  • Round-robin consideration round: [10 min] each participant can now share ONE tip or insight about the challenge. In this segment of the Peer Assist, instruct participants that each person can only speak once, as a Peer Assist is not a discussion. Emphasize that expressions such as “oh you should do X” or “I advise you to do Y” are unhelpful because it would be presumptuous for someone who is not in the presenter’s shoes to offer unsolicited advice. The goal is not to offer advice, but to listen actively, and offer support. Each person is encouraged to build on what has already been shared. Presenter listens and takes notes. Allow the Presenter to intervene exclusively to ask clarifying questions, or, in extreme circumstances, to steer back the discussion into a direction more useful to the presenter.

  • Group conversation: [10 min] the presenter takes a moment to process and shares key takeaways. Then, open for everyone else in the group to share around the question: “What is ONE thing you learned from this activity?”

Note: It is important to avoid setting it up in a way where peers are actively recommending steps. The goal for the activity is to provide support to the person offering a challenge. Any participant is welcome to follow up with the person with the challenge, after the activity, for additional thoughts, considerations, or help.


Follow up

After the Peer Assist, as with all events, make sure that you follow up, within 24 hours if possible, with notes from the event, information about upcoming events, invitation to community members to connect 1 on 1, or to continue the peer support on the Community Platform


This article is part of the WBG Communities of Practice Toolkit licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The toolkit features practical resources to help you develop impactful Communities of Practice. 📖 Learn more about the Toolkit.  ▶ Access the Toolkit