Consulting
Les consults on a diverse range of issues to do with community change.
Here are some examples:
Cycling behaviour change strategy
Partner: GHD
Client: The City of Sydney
The City of Sydney is embarking on a transformative program of cycleway construction to dramatically shift transport choice in Australia's most traffic-clogged city. It wants to get the human dimension right too. So Les is working with multinational infrastructure consultants GHD to devise a behavioural strategy to greatly increase the number of people cycling and improve the behaviour of cyclists. It's an interesting multi-disciplinary project mixing infrastructure, communications, regulation, events and partnerships.
Conversation skills for emergency volunteers
Clients: NSW State Emergency Service
Les is developing and piloting a training course in conversation skills so SES volunteers can engage the public in action-oriented conversations about flood and storm safety.
Beyond the Fence - facilitating communities of learning and environmental action
Clients: DECCW, DET
Les is training and mentoring coordinators responsible for working with four clusters of schools across NSW to create learning communiites to plan and initiate environmental action 'beyond the fence'.
How to save the world - one conversation at a time
Client: Australian Conservation Foundation
Does conversation change the world? Yes..if it's optimistic and action-oriented. Working with facilitator Margo Lockhart, Les developed a guide for community champions to facilitate action conversations in their networks and communities.
Strategy to save a river
Client: Lower Georges River Sustainability Initiative
Les facilitated a logic model workshop that developed outcomes (focused on a mix of governance interventions and communtiy partnerships) that will determine the success of this $2m two year program.
Maximising innovation in an NRM body
Client: Southern Rivers Catchment Management Authority
After four years of hectic activity, spending some $50m on natural resource management projects, what have the staff of this agency learnt about doing this work well? What processes and tools have they innovated? What do they want to do differently from now on? Les recommended organisational improvements to get the best results in future.
Enabling parent self-help groups
Client: Mission Australia, Miller Pathways
Starting a self-help group is daunting. Fortunately it's possible to break down the process into a series of simple step-by-step how-to guides. It's amazing that no one has ever done this before. Download the CLEAR Manual. (1.3Mb PDF)
Skilling Sustainability Assessors
Client: Association of Building Sustainability Assessors
Les wrote a householder interaction module for the national training program for household sustainability assessors, and trained-the-trainers to deliver it (part of the Australian Government's now sadly departed Green Loans Program). The aim is to maximise the change moment when an assessor visits your home.
Upskilling Al Gore's Australian presenters
Client: Australian Conservation Foundation
With facilitator Tony Wilson, Les developed a new worshop format for Al Gore's local presenters, to enable to them to better engage the public in climate change actions, and we trained them in how to use it.
Arabic anti-smoking campaign: Ma'feesh cigara men gheir khosara (No cigarette without loss)
Clients: Sydney South West Area Health Service and Social Change Media
Les developed a research methodology to identify enabling conversations to allow both smokers and non-smokers to negotiate healthful outcomes where there was conflict over smoking in the home (as is often the case). These conversations were modelled in a radio advertising campaign over 18 months leading to a 5.3% drop in smoking prevalence and a 7.8% increase in smoke-free homes in this community. (Results published in Health Promotion International.)
Practice Change in Natural Resource Management
Client: The Australian Government
This national project closely examined the experiences of four regional NRM organisations in different states. Recommendations
aimed to improve the effectiveness of regional NRM organisations as agents of practice change.
Effective small projects: a facilitator's handbook and evaluation tools
Client: Environmental Protection Authority (Vic)
The Neighbourhood Environment Improvement Program (NEIP) has proved to be a sound model for collaborative community/agency action on tricky and chronic environmental problems at the neighbourhood and catchment level. This consultancy involved developing tools and methodologies to improve delivery and enable reflective assessment by participants.
Community engagement in water management
Client: Department of Environment and Conservation (NSW)
This consultancy included the development of case studies and original training tools to
build the capacity of water
managers to develop and manage public participation projects.
Education for Resilience
Client: State Emergency Service (NSW)
This study presents a communication model for building the resilience of vulnerable communities in the face of
natural hazards, as well as offering some solutions to the perennial problem of motivating the public on low probability hazards.
Download the full study. (PDF 248k)
Capacity-building for regional activists
Client: NSW Nature Conservation Council
A series of wide-ranging 'capacity-building' workshops
with the NCC's regional councils on the North Coast, Central West and Riverina. These primarily focused on
strategic planning to meet a rapidly changing political and institutional environment.
Public participation in decision-making
Clients: The Western Australian Local Government Association,
The Eastern Metropolitan Regional Council
Partner: Nolan-ITU
WA has experienced intense, protracted public conflicts over new waste facilities.
This consultancy looked at international best practice in community participation, recommended a
new approach and provided decision tools which aim to make communities more equal partners in decision-making
for new waste management technologies.
FULL REPORT (328k PDF)
Two useful papers are available:
The qualities of effective public participation processes (PDF 185k)
and
Two decision tools for setting the level of public participation (PDF 348k).
Strategic tools for ACF campaigners
Client: The Australian Conservation Foundation
ACF's campaigners run very complex national campaigns with limited resources.
We created an innovative set of strategic tools to focus and simpify their planning tasks.
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