Identifying Your Audiences

There are three primary audiences to keep in mind as you consider training and support material for your program.

The first audience is your paralegals. You should already have in mind the range of roles that you would like your paralegals to play, as well as the legal areas that they will need to be familiar with. These roles—and their related needs—will range from knowl- edge about how the government and social services systems work, to specific areas of law, to community education and development, to skills for case intake, office administration, and advocacy. There is a lot to cover, and you will not be able to anticipate every need. For this reason, resource development—as well as your paralegal training—should be seen as an ongoing process.

You will need to match the profile of the ideal, high-performing paralegal against the novice paralegals that you will be hiring for your program. Based on the gaps that you anticipate, you will need to develop resources that help them learn necessary legal and civics content and develop their skills in areas such as interviewing, documentation, mediation, and community education and advocacy.

Your second audience is the communities where your paralegals will carry out public awareness activities, including workshops. Your initial needs assessment should have identified the populations you intend to work with, and their most pressing needs. Materials will need to be designed so that they both prepare the paralegals for their work but also serve as resources that can be used in carrying out community education, development, and advocacy. You may find that the original set of materials you develop for your paralegals and for communities will need to be further refined according to dif- ferent levels of need.

Finally, an important third audience is the trainers who work with your parale- gals. Whether you are using trainers from the target community or master trainers from within the paralegal ranks, the training materials should support your vision of an ideal program staffed by outstanding paralegals. Interactive, or participatory, methods of train-

ing are generally used as they are motivational and more effective in helping to detect and develop skills among trainees. Any trainer’s manual that you develop should include details on teaching methodologies and organizing interactive workshops.

Your sensitivity and skill in understanding your trainees’ backgrounds will be essential for developing effective and well-used materials. The following list of questions can help identify ways in which your materials can be customized to meet the needs of your various audiences.

 Reading ability

• What are the literacy and educational levels of the trainees? • How complex can the language in the training materials be? • How long can the reading text be?

• Would any other educational aids be of assistance, either in order to clarify points, or to introduce additional information (for example, drawings, pho- tographs, personal recollections, and newspaper clippings)?

 Writing ability

• What are the writing abilities of the trainees?

• What is the maximum length for a writing exercise, if these are used? • Background knowledge

• What background knowledge does the trainee bring?

• Which basic concepts and definitions need to be introduced or explained? • Are there warm-up exercises that you can do in order to find out what the

trainees already know and think? • Should a glossary of terms be included?

 Background attitudes

• What fixed conceptions, attitudes, or even prejudices are the trainees likely to bring to the learning situation?

• What misunderstandings may arise, and how can you prevent these from happening?

• Are there issues that need to be handled with care or particular sensitivity, especially for certain members of the group?

• How can trainers be prepared to deal with any highly emotional issues that may arise in the learning situation?

• Can activities be developed in such a way that various points of view are pre- sented?

 Motivating trainees

• What are the issues of greatest concern and interest to the trainees?

• Can these be addressed first, and then used to bring in other law- and human rights-related topics?

• Can you find ways of directly relating the content of the lesson to the train- ees’ own experiences or personal interests?

 Learning environments

• How do the trainees feel about being in an educational setting in the first place?

• Are the trainees generally motivated, or is it the reverse—does the workshop setting have negative connotations for the trainees?

• How can you create a learning environment that is most welcoming for your group?

 Active methods

• Will trainers and trainees feel comfortable using interactive methods? • Does the rationale for these methods need to be explained openly?

• Do the lessons contain explicit instructions about how to implement the methodologies—while at the same time leaving some discretion to the educator?

• Is it realistic to expect that trainers will be willing to share authority in the classroom with trainees? Is there shared trust?

Interactive Teaching Methods: Sample Section from Legal Guide (Methodology), Mongolia

Different types of teaching activities and exercises that can be used to train paralegals include:

Brainstorming, Ranking exercises, Small group discussions, Case studies, Role Plays, Question and answer, Simulations, Debates, Games, Hypothetical problems, Moots, Mock trials, Open-ended stimulus, Opinion polls, Participant presentations, Taking a stand, Thinking on your feet, Values clarification, Aquarium-Fishbowl, Jigsaw, Each one, teach one, Visual aids, Use of experts, Field trips, Puppets, Folk stories, Songs, Exhibitions, Theatre, Newspapers and magazines, Call-in Radio and television shows.

Source: Open Society Forum–Mongolia