Table of Contents >
Chapter 12. Providing Training and Technical Assistance >
Section 9. Serving as a Consultant >
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| Contributed by Phil Rabinowitz Edited by Bill Berkowitz |
Checklist
Here you’ll find a checklist summarizing the main points of the section.
What is a consultant?
__ A consultant is an individual (or, occasionally, a group or organization) that brings experience and expertise about an issue or process to an initiative, organization, group, government entity, or community.
__ A consultant might have knowledge relating to an issue (theoretical, experiential, or both), knowledge of a process (usually both theoretical and experiential), or a specific skill.
Why might you serve as a consultant?
You might serve as a consultant…
__ To facilitate a particular intervention or initiative.
__ To benefit or have a positive impact on a population you serve or are concerned with.
__ To nurture an organization that will provide a needed service to the community.
__ To cement relationships with other organizations, and encourage collaboration rather than competition among health, human service, and community workers.
__ To gain recognition and credibility for your organization, or establish it as an “expert” in the field.
__ To earn needed money for your organization.
__ To help solve a longstanding community problem.
Who might serve as a consultant?
__ Current or former program directors or other staffers who have direct experience with an issue, with a population, or with organizational design, development, and management.
__ Current or former local or state officials, legislators, and others who’ve dealt with issues from the policy standpoint.
__ Community activists.
__ Advocates.
__ Members of the target community or population.
__ Academics – including students – who work on a particular issue or process.
__ People with organizational and process skills – counselors, mediators, social workers, psychologists, etc.
When might you serve as a consultant?
You might be asked to serve as a consultant…
__ At the beginning of something new.
__ When an organization or group is having a problem.
__ When the community sets out to tackle an issue you’ve been working on.
__ When you see an opportunity to help, and believe you have the knowledge, expertise, and skills to do so.
__ When your acting as a consultant would clearly benefit the population you care about, or add to the credibility and reputation of your organization.
__ When you’re asked.
How do you serve as a consultant?
__ You define your role as
- Advisor
- Facilitator
- Expert Specialist
- Trainer
__ You define your relationship with the group you’re working with.
__ You do your homework, learning all you can about:
- The organization or group you’re working with
- The community
- The issue at hand
__ You tailor your guidance or work to the organization or community you’re working with.
- Adjust your style, your suggestions, your guidance, etc. to what people will accept.
- Take the group’s unique circumstances into account.
- Examine the issue at hand in relation to the particular group, organization, or community you’re working with.
- Pay attention to the potential consequences of any advice, action, process, etc. that you propose.
- Be flexible.
- Keep your eye on the long term.
- Institutionalize your work.