Training & Engagement

Guiding Principles for Our Work

Training and Engagement at the Wells Reserve is committed to supporting coastal management and decision-making through four main avenues: knowledge and skill building, technical assistance, community engagement, and collaborative science.

Increasing Knowledge, Skills, and Capacities: We support the exchange of knowledge between coastal decision makers, scientists and researchers, and local communities through workshops, trainings, and professional development opportunities. We understand that information flows from many directions– not just from the top down– and are committed to facilitating multi-directional learning environments where all voices are heard and welcome. This form of capacity building relies on expanding the existing network of expertise, providing skill building opportunities, and facilitating peer-to-peer learning. WNERR TE specializes in offering the following:

• Skill-building trainings

• Topical workshops

• Professional development opportunities

• Community of practice convenings

Technical Assistance: This pillar of TE’s program delivery is focused on meeting and filling immediate needs and gaps. TE provides assistance on resource development, designing community engagement processes, fostering relationship building, and facilitating meetings for coastal community resilience. Presently, WNERR TE staff are equipped to advise and lead on the following:

• Planning, coordinating, and facilitating project meetings

• Engagement process design, implementation, and evaluation

• Communications (including but not limited to: science translation, delivery, marketing and virtual engagement)

• Social science methodologies

• Planning processes

• Grant writing

Community Engagement: We cannot rely on science alone to solve our current and future environmental challenges. In order for resilience strategies to be successful, they must reflect the needs, priorities, and voices of local community members. TE supports consistent, community-driven engagement processes and relationship building to promote trust, collaboration, and knowledge sharing for community resilience. Central to TE’s pillar on community engagement is the premise of meeting people where they’re at, an outcome of the oft-repeated mantra, “nothing for us, without us”. WNERR TE staff can provide the following:

• Community engagement, outreach, and communication planning

• Workshop design, facilitation, and evaluation

• Incorporating public participation in decision-making

• Site visits and field trips coordination

Collaborative Science: Collaborative science is a knowledge co-creation process that informs coastal management planning and policy by involving scientists, natural resources managers, local leaders, communities, and other decision-makers to advance understanding in a manner that none of them working alone could accomplish. Collaborative science approaches are grounded in the idea that science should be designed and conducted in ways that are responsive to the needs of decision-makers. This work also recognizes that sometimes knowledge may already exist but it is dispersed and/or not readily accessible in a form that is useful for decision-makers. In that case, it needs to be collected, analyzed, and/or translated in order to be useful. WNERR TE engaged in this work through:

• Co-developing grant proposals

• Creating opportunities for cross-sector collaboration

• Identifying ways to use social science methods and data for decision-making