The Most Significant Change Technique

1. The Most Significant Change Technique

2. Quantitative Monitoring Evaluation MSC Qualitative

3. Why is M&E important? • Donor reporting • Accountability to beneficiaries • Internal accountability and learning • Sharing the findings – up and down the chain • ‘Old-style’ expert led evaluation vs innovative, participatory evaluation involving all project stakeholders

4. Young People affected by armed conflict: understanding the context • Who is a refugee? • Someone who has fled their country of origin and is at risk of persecution because of race, religion, political opinion, nationality, or membership of a particular social group. • Experiences in country of origin • Unlawful imprisonment • severe harassment by authorities • torture • witnessing killing or torture of close family members, friends and comrades • aerial bombardments • disappearance of close family members • Lack of services including education • Experiences in exile • Jordan county of first asylum – people are in the middle of exile experience • extreme risks to cross boarder. Many leave in secret or in a time of chaos, little/no opportunity to say goodbye or pack belongings • Many families become separated in the process of escaping – minors ‘change’ families, become unaccompanied • Life in camp is extremely difficult: overcrowding, food shortages (current WFP problems), few educational facilities, and a lack of safety, sexual and phsycial violence serious problem , YP particularly vulnerable

5. Young People affected by armed conflict: understanding the context • War affects young people differently than adults. How? • YP are inherently more vulnerable to violence and abuse • YP are at key choice points in their lives • ‘normal life’ shattered, loss of identity, social fragmentation, change of roles, lack of formal education… • Psychological trauma from war and from refugee experience is common • Can results in PTSD – more acute closer to time of incident • intrusive thoughts, memories, flashbacks and nightmares of traumatic event • Disassociation: avoiding thoughts, memories, people and situations that trigger traumatic memories • hyper-arousal symptoms: sleeping, memory and concentration problems, startle responses, irritability and aggression • What might this look like in our students? • Learning difficulties, behavioral problems, concentration problems, violent behaviors, inability to establish trust/new connections, delayed development/sped up development, nightmares, bed wetting… • However, young people are incredibly resilient, have agency and enormous potential to create change in their communities. This is why C4R exists! • We must always think about why we do what we do, the impact of our work, and if we can do it better. MSC helps us to do this.

6. A brief overview of MSC… • The MSC technique is a really easy and fun process where we collect stories about young people. • You are the main point of contact that C4R has with students, so what you see, notice, and think about students is very important for us all to hear. The MSC technique is a way to capture and share this information. • Observe, record, reflect, share, react (collaboratively) • The aim is to collect real and honest stories of change about our students that reflect the work of C4R • To document and help us better understand the impact of our work • To prompt you to look out for, discuss and reflect on the changes that are happening in students • To enhance the protective function of our work • To learn what works well and what doesn't (and make changes accordingly) - so the stories don’t always need to be about positive change!

7. So what do I do? • Always be aware of the progress of your students. Look out for and record information about the changes that you are observing in them. • Keep a note book and record your thoughts and observations after each class, each week, or when something important happens. • At least once a month look through your notebook and choose which is the most significant story to you. • Take some time to write this story in more detail and also articulate why you have chosen it. • We will all sit down together and discus everyone’s stories. (Stories can be added to and changed during this discussion). We will do this all together in the office. • As a group, we then settle on one story to share with the whole team at the team meeting

8. How do I tell my stories? • You can think of it like writing a story for a newspaper • A newspaper does not include information about everything that has happened in the last 24 hours. • Rather, the editors choose which are the most significant events and write stories about these events. • We are particularly concerned with change • What type of changes do you think might see in young people? Arami – have you noticed any changes?

9. Example story 1 KH is 14 years old, her dad is married to two wives. She has 10 siblings, 7 from her father’s other wife. Her parents were divorced since her birth. Her mother works for many hours, she stays out of house in order to get money for the family because her husband doesn’t give them money. KH is not friendly with her brothers and sister because they blame her for their parents’ divorce since they were divorced at her birth. She always fights her sister and said “I wish she was dead”. Her father rarely visits them and when he does, he treats them very badly and aggressively, hitting them. She said “I hate my father; I wish he wasn’t my father”. She doesn’t pay attention to her education, she spend most of her time watching TV. She enjoys watching action and bloody movies which explain her aggressive and violent behavior with others. “I’m a good person but no one appreciates” she said in a sad voice. What is missing from this story?

10. It must be a story of change! KH’s story is a real story written by a member of the Palestine team. It has great background information but there is no change, and nothing related to our project. In order to see a change, you need two time points. You need to know what the situation was like before and after.

11. What kind of change? • You can write stories about anything, but as a useful starting point, let’s think about what we consider to be ‘positive behaviour’ or ’negative behaviour‘ So changes from the ‘bad’ signs to the ‘good’ signs would show positive impact. But this is just one type of story…

12. Example story 2 RS, a 7-year-old girl, lives with her poor family, a family that has no relatives. She lost her father when she was very young, and that effects her life negatively. During the practice, we noticed that RS likes to stay isolated, and if she participates in a game she would spoil it, or she would be the winner, if not she gets very angry or sad. We convinced RS that she is not alone, and that we are always there to help her. She started to interact positively with us, and that made her change her behavior with her family and friends. For instance: she wanted to play all the time even if it wasn’t her turn. After a while and through talking a lot to her (assistant trainers and other children), she started to understand and wait for her turn. Also, at the beginning she showed aggressive behaviour towards other children. This behaviour has become much better and she shows more control over her emotions.

13. Different types of stories are good • We are looking for positive and negative change. • There is a big difference between M&E and marketing. Marketing captures biased data that shows the project in the best light. M&E captures unbiased data that reflects the realities of the project. • Any story – whether it is about positive or negative change – is useful, as it shows the reality of the project. A negative story can help internal learning and accountability and shed light on the difficulties of the project and perhaps lead to improvements. • M&E can be turned into marketing. Only the positive ones would then be selected for marketing purposes, but the negative ones are equally valuable for the M&E process.

14. Example: A negative change story Read started training capoeira with me three years ago. He was a very fast learner and his body was made for capoeira. He was one of the best in my class. Six months ago he stopped training. I called him and went to see him to ask him why he is not training any more. He told me that now he is 18 years old and so he cannot play any more. He needs to find a job and support his family. I tried to talk to him to persuade him to think about his decision but he said that his pressure from his family is very strong.

15. Why did you choose this story? • You must include information on why you see this story as the most significant. • This is the part where your values come out and where the interesting discussions start!

16. Example story 3 MM is 8 years old he is one of our students from Jalazone refuge camp, Palestine. He knew about capoeira because his friend JS who is the same age as him brought him along. They are amazing they are the youngest in the class but they are very tough, they behave as grown men and they love to play with other kids. At the same time they don’t let anyone mess with them. A couple of times some kids tried to mess with them, because they are the youngest. But they were as a unit, sticking together and tried to not let it happen. They show this kid and the other kids that they are cool but not easy to mess with. Through capoeira, they have become more a unit and you can see in their faces how happy they are when they are playing together. • What are the values in this story? • Do you agree with these values?

17. Example story 3 …They are amazing they are the youngest in the class but they are very tough, they behave as grown men and they love to play with other kids. At the same time they don’t let anyone mess with them. A couple of times some kids tried to mess with them, because they are the youngest…. • The person who wrote this story valued ‘being tough’. However, not everyone on the team agreed with him. • This lead to a very interesting discussion about whether ‘being tough’ is something that we are trying to nurture. • The great thing about MSC is that through such discussions, staff begin to explore their values. And through the story selection process, only the stories which exemplify the group’s shared values will be selected. • This helps us ensure the values of Capoeira4refugees are being practiced with young people, not individual staff values • Importantly, we can also look out for ways we can better work with young people and enhance the psychosocial outcomes of the project.

18. How to collect information • Systematic observation. Record it in your notebook! You will be surprised at how much you already know. • Group debriefs (after every session you should talk to the group for 5-10 minutes about their feelings/thoughts) • How was the class today? • How do you feel after class? • Everyone has to say 2 words!! • Talk to individual students (particularly those whose behaviour seems problematic, or distant). Record your discussions. • Always refer complex cases to our psychosocial counsellor or our partner who has the capacity to follow-up.

19. Be careful not to bias responses Remember, we want honest stories that reflect reality. When talking to people, be careful not to ask leading questions. Think about these three questions: • What do you love about Capoeira? • How has your life improved since starting capoeira? • Has anything in your life changed since you started capoeira? If yes, can you explain these to me? If no, why do you think nothing has changed? Which question is the best and why?

20. Ethical considerations • We are writing stories about students’ lives • Sometimes these stories will include very sensitive and personal information. • For this reason, we must do two important things: • Make the stories anonymous. During story discussion, we can use real names so that team-members can identify with stories and add to stories. However, when writing in your notebooks, avoid using names or use pseudonyms that you will remember. • If you are writing a detailed story, you need to ask the student’s permission to write a story about the changes you have seen in them. Tell them that you will share it with the team but that you will not write their name. Explain that it is because you have seen big changes in them and you would like other people to learn from them.

21. Monthly MSC meetings • Once everyone has written their stories, we come together to discuss them and choose one which is the most significant. • First everyone reads their story and explains why they chose this story. If others know extra details, they can add to stories. • Then everyone votes (chooses one story). • There is a discussion, people explain why they voted in a particular way. • As people move closer towards consensus, there is a re-vote, with the aim of the whole team agreeing on one story. • The process of discussing and re-voting may need to occur several times. • This process helps us all become more aware of the impact of our work • I will also use it to capture data about the projects and feed it up to management • Let’s set a day now for our monthly meeting…

22. Have fun!! • As long as you are proud of what you are doing, then writing stories should be fun! • However, it is a process that may take time to learn • Don’t worry about writing a perfect story. As you hear more stories, you will improve in your understanding of how to write a story. • If you are not confident in English, write the story in Arabic and we will get it translated. • If you have any questions, ask your manager or me. • Any last questions? Enrol Now !!!