Extremely poor households have various needs and multi-dimensional barriers that affect their progress towards achieving better economic status and wellbeing. In order to get extremely poor people out of dependency on aid, there is a need to address, change their mindset towards self-efficacy and agency that together with motivation can lead them to building sustainable livelihoods.
Coaching component under the Graduation Approach
The Graduation Approach, a sequenced, time-bound, and multi-sectoral intervention, is tailored to counter intricate aspects of extreme poverty. This tested and adaptable approach features key components such as coaching, linkages and referrals, savings and financial inclusion, consumption support, livelihood skills training and support, asset transfer, and business coaching.
The appropriate employment of the aforementioned elements is essential to ensuring the success of implementing the graduation approach and permanently reversing the cycle of poverty in any community context. In graduation programs globally, coaching is one of the most integral components, sometimes even referenced as the “x” factor that ensures that extremely poor participant households are accompanied and motivated to achieve self-reliance and resilience through established, trusted, and on-going relationships.
The SMILES project approach
The IKEA Foundation-funded Sustainable Market Inclusive Livelihood Pathways to Self-Reliance (SMILES) project is targeting 14,000 households, corresponding to an estimated 70,000 individuals - extremely poor refugee and host community households in the rural districts of Kyangwali and Kyaka II Refugee Settlements in Western Uganda - to build sustainable livelihoods, self-reliance, and resilience, while taking a two-cohort intervention of 24 months each and delivering a graduation model integrated with a market system development approach.
Impact of coaching in the SMILES project
Using the GROW (Goal, Reality, Opportunity and Way forward) coaching model, the SMILES project is engaging extremely poor refugees and host community participant households in a structured tailored weekly two-hour group coaching session with a lite quarterly household touch point by a trained coach. The coaching themes, informed by the refinement formative and continuous implementation period contextual assessment and project data is delivered following the project designed structured curriculum with 25 coaching topics adapted and aligned to empower households to plan for themselves and meet their needs. The curriculum integrates key context-specific evidence on issues relating to gender and youth engagement, energy and environment, preventive health, early childhood growth and development, parenting, and psychosocial support as well as several key messages that reinforce the technical skills training while promoting specific behaviour including; savings, financial management, planning, amongst others.
During this engagement, a project trained coach is selected from the community - one who assumes case management responsibilities, follows, guides, and supports 100 households in groups of 25 each over a period of 24 months beginning with a social contract and towards achieving their short and long-term graduation goals. 10-12 coaches are supported by a program officer who shadows their work in addition to offering weekly support through meetings also attended by technical advisors. The coaching component enables participants and their households use their existing knowledge and skills to make informed and realistic decisions to achieve their specific goals along the graduation pathways of food security, self-efficacy, savings, business, basic needs, and child growth and development.
Coaching has a unique contribution to make in effecting positive change over and above material support. It focuses on behaviour change strategies that aim to foster positive behaviours and curtail potentially damaging ones. Notably, coaching enhances peer learning, establishes rapport, bolsters social cohesion, and mitigates conflicts amongst randomly grouped or “paired” participants as it acts as the glue through the varying thematic, and psychosocial themes and using the buddy system—a randomly assigned paired support mechanism that allows participants to interact and support each other throughout their entire involvement in the project and beyond.
The participation of spouses and other family members in coaching sessions is encouraged and mobilised for by the coach who besides looking out for primary participants also motivates and reminds especially spouses to attend sessions with their wives, which improves shared roles and responsibilities, decision-making, and healthier relationships at the household level. Through the motivating and encouraging approach, participants are empowered to candidly share their challenges with their coaches and other participants in the group and the coach is able to link participants to other critical services such as health, education, protection, energy, financial, and WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) through referrals.
The frequent intermediation between program staff and participants plays a major role in boosting confidence, knowledge exchange, raising awareness on social and health issues, and adopting a positive attitude and behaviour, which ingrains hope and motivates participants to challenge poverty, thrive, and create a better future for themselves and their households.
Coaching encompasses all of the graduation approach's core principles, which collectively enable households to build sustainable livelihoods, self-reliance, and resilience and uplift themselves out of extreme poverty.