A three-day training session was held in Kyiv to develop the capability of the Coordination Centre’s team – Quality and Accessible Legal Aid in Ukraine Project

On May 18-20, the specialists of the Coordination Centre for Legal Aid Provision took part in three-day training on capacity development for strategic planning and development of facilitation skills. The training was conducted by the Ukrainian-Canadian project Quality and Accessible Legal Aid in Ukraine, implemented by the Canadian Bureau for International Education and funded by the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with the Coordination Centre for Legal Aid Provision being its partner in Ukraine.

34 specialists from the Coordination Centre took part in the training, among them, for the first time, the leaders of the interregional resource and communication platforms that were created this year. The trainers worked with the Coordination Centre’s team – Ivanna Ibragimova, team leader of the project Quality and Accessible Legal Aid in Ukraine, and Oleksandra Tselishcheva, expert of the project.

During the first two days, the trainees continued to deepen their knowledge of strategic planning and practice the skills of strategic planning of the LA system in Ukraine. The CC’s employees discussed main components of the strategic planning and features of the logic-structural approach. How to think strategically when planning an organization? What is the relationship between the hierarchy of problems, goals and results? What do objectives indicate and how do they differ from tasks? What are results, why it is important to distinguish between product results (immediate outputs) and implication results, effects or impacts of our actions (outcomes)? What level of expected results shall be covered by indicators? – To answer these questions, the trainees made practical exercises focused on the mission, vision and value of the LA system and already existing experience of planning in the system. Specialists of different structural divisions discussed plans of their activity and their contribution to the achievement of the priority goals of the system development.

Since values are the main guideline for activity and the basis for planning, several sessions were devoted to actualizing the values of the system, considering values as the basis of organizational culture. Specialists of the Coordination Centre discussed main elements of organizational culture, features of a supportive organizational culture of a successful organization (such as openness, aspiration, leadership, inspiration, achievement). The trainees jointly analysed the organizational culture both in the Coordination Centre and in the system as a whole, discussed different points of view on this issue and ways of promoting the values of the LA system, preserving and further developing a favourable organizational culture in the system. In particular, the maintaining of a focus on continuous improvement in work for better results, an integrated approach to finding answers to challenges and innovative solutions that depend on the culture of communication, openness to discussing different thoughts and ideas, teamwork, tolerance and devotion, the use of various learning mechanisms, cascade of knowledge and experience exchange etc. were discussed.

The third day of the event was devoted to the development of facilitation issues. Facilitation is a process where a specialist (facilitator) helps a group to discuss issues and make decisions in an effective way by supporting full engagement of all participants of the process, gradual discussion of all ideas, achievement of mutual understanding and search for solutions acceptable to the group and for which they are ready to be co-responsible. The facilitator is neither a lecturer nor a trainer; his role is not related to the influence on the content of the issue; instead, he provides impartial assistance in arranging the process of constructive discussion. Facilitation enables to successfully organize and hold meetings and negotiations, to arrange communication both within the organization and with external partners, to achieve mutually beneficial results for all participants of any communication, and, thus, to make such communication successful. The trainees discussed factors influencing group discussion, group dynamics, facilitation tools and skills needed by facilitators, as well as so tested their active listening skills.

The training contributed to the strengthening of the team work of the Coordination Centre, its cohesion, orientation towards a common vision of the system’s further development.

This event belongs to the series of trainings for teams of the Coordination Centre and centres for the provision of secondary legal aid, held during 2015-2017 with the support of the project Quality and Accessible Legal Aid in Ukraine, and aimed at strengthening the capacity for strategic planning and communications in the legal aid system.

The training was attended by Vice-President of the Canadian Bureau for International Education, Director of the project Quality and Accessible Legal Aid in Ukraine Larissa Bezo, Project Manager in Ukraine Oksana Kikot, and Project Coordinator Oleksandr Tertychka.