Phase 3: Action

At a glance

  • Find partners (professionals or organizations) with experience, resources, and expertise that can add to your team's (cadre's) capabilities.
  • Resources here can help you create your professional development offerings.
  • Include technical assistance and follow-up support to the post-training timeline.

Training cadre success

Partnerships

To be most effective with trainings, look beyond the immediate team to see how your cadre can partner with others. In particular, look to professionals or organizations with experience, resources, and expertise that can add to your cadre's capabilities.

Partnerships lead to sustained conversations and awareness, whereas activities are more likely to help meet identified needs.

As your organization grows in professional capacity, outcomes of effective partnerships include:

  • Increased contributions from staff because of improved skills and knowledge.
  • Better planning and implementation of programs, practices, and policies.
  • Synergy from collaboration—to increase quality, quantity, or cost-effectiveness of programs, practices, and policies.
  • Better alignment of goals among cadre members and the organization.

Successful partnerships

Characteristics of successful partnerships include:

  • Mutual respect.
  • Coordination of administrative responsibility.
  • Reciprocal roles.
  • Shared decision making.
  • Mutual accountability.
  • Transparency.

Example of a Partnership‎

The goal was to provide professional development on Wellness Policies. The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) invited the Washington State Coordinator for Action for Healthy Kids to the Health and Physical Education Cadre Meeting. What transpired? By collaborating, two school districts revised and adopted district Wellness Policies.

Timelines

It will likely be helpful for your cadre to create a timeline for activities. You might determine activities your cadre will perform by milestones, such as:

  • 1−6 months.
  • 7−12 months.
  • Beyond year 1.

Be sure to include specific tasks for individual cadre members, as needed.

Technical assistance and follow-up support

Technical assistance and follow-up support are an essential part of professional development.

Your training cadre will likely provide technical assistance and targeted follow-up support after training events. These are intended to reinforce or strengthen new skills. Follow-up support is ongoing and may change over time as needs change.

Three phases should be considered as your training cadre develops its follow-up support processes:

  1. Design phase: Plan for support when developing training events.
  2. Delivery phase: Collect evaluation data to identify the best follow-up options.
  3. Follow-up phase: Implement a follow-up support strategy.

Resources

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Content Source:
Division of Adolescent and School Health; National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP)