Stages of Program Development

By Victoria Ybanez, MPA

Programs grow out of ideas and if the ideas are strong enough, meaning they are responsive to the community needs, they generally will be forward moving with the right conditions, and the path and pace of the movement can be somewhat predictable. There are factors that influence where a program is at in its life cycle. These include the age of the program, changes and emerging trends within the field of work, the program’s size, its social environment, and its primary leader’s characteristics. (Simon & Donovan, 2002)

While the program is generally forward moving, its path and growth can be somewhat predictable. The speed it grows is unique to the program and its environmental circumstances. A program in one community cannot directly be compared to another due to these unique circumstances. One program can move faster or slower in its growth cycle. At each stage there are opportunities for the organization to regress or progress. (Simon & Donovan, 2002) There are distinct phases within the program’s life, but the boundaries between the stages aren’t always obvious.

At each phase of development, significant events take place. The occurrence of significant, and sometimes critical, events (such as the hiring of the advocate, the loss of tribal leadership support, or a reduction in funding) within each phase can increase progress or hinder progress.

Street art

Getting started

This is the pre-program phase. At this time, within the community or an organization, talk begins to evolve into an idea. The idea starts to take form and can be visualized by one or a few people. It is at this time that the idea gets defined and shaped.

An important part of this stage is figuring out what the needs are within the community for the Domestic or Sexual Violence Program. This can be examined by looking at some of the information that nbeighboring programs may already have. Data such as numbers of survivors that request help, numbers of survivors that are returning to their abuser because of a lack of support, availability of domestic or sexual violence in your area, kinds of needs survivors are asking for that are not able to be met in a short period of time, and so forth.

Additionally, you will want to also develop your vision for the program.

• What does tribally specific domestic or sexual violence program look like for your tribal community?

Once the foundation of the idea is formulated, it will be time to identify resources to support the program. This will include funding for the program but also as important are the community resources available to support the program such as access to social service resources, behavior health resources, housing, culturall supports than can be offered, and economic and financial resources to name a few.

Basic Programming

Often times, at this stage, a new program looks to neighboring programs doing similar work to adapt their policies and practices. This is a great idea because, of course, why reinvent the wheel. However, it’s important to recognize that the program or programs you might be looking at are not an exact fit, they may be a mature program with years of experience, they might be a larger program, they might be a non-native program, or they might be guided by different funding sources that have different requirements or rules, and serving a different population in need.

Borrow their ideas but be sure to take the time to consider how their ideas fit within what you want to do. This is a critical time to ask your team, “how does this fit within your vision and values as a tribal/native community?”

Now that you got funded, what comes next? This may be a time filled with excitement mixed with a little bit of apprehension.  Securing funding is a significant milestone in building your program, you have resources to move to the next step. This is the time to put in place the programmatic structure. This includes providing more detail to your program vision and framework. You will need to describe the following:

1. Expand on your initial program design;

2. Describe the culturally specific support services you are providing to survivors. Include the four core areas:

   1. Safety

   2. Crisis Response

   3. Advocacy

   4. Recovery from Violence

3. Program eligibility criteria and other important information related to handling confidential information, safety planning and strategies, managing financial resources, adherence to funding requirements, and more.

4. Notify the community of your program and start serving survivors.

Established Programming

The program has been operating for a bit of time and you have in place all four core program components: Safety; Crisis Response, Advocacy, and Recovery.

At this phase, the core of the program is stabilized, and plans are emerging on how to enhance the range of options in each area.

One program began Financial or Economic Advocacy by providing education about financial literacy, budgeting and working with the jobs program, getting assistance with developing resumes ,and job searches for participants. When they stabilized that part of the program and staff capacity had increased, they began working with the tribal college to help participants access college level classes and programs to build more opportunities for employability.

Staffing is stable and has been expanding both their knowledge and skills to expand the core program components. The community is knowledgeable of the kinds of programming available through your program.

After the program had been in operation for 3 years, one of the advocates had a vision about creating a space for traditional healing options, a place where survivors could come together. And an Indigenous Healing Garden was created to hold education groups, cultural activities and gatherings, and have a space grow traditional medicines. This would not have been possible when we started but it was time, and it came together.

Enhanced Programming

At this phase, the program has developed some maturity; it's built the critical partnerships that are true collaborations. Early on, relationships were built on learning about each of the community resources and was able to make good referrals. Now the program has evolved beyond just making referrals to working closely with the community partners that are critical to supporting the program. The collaborations provide important work, expanding the services and resources available to program participants enhancing the quality of the program and providing a more seamless response, thereby taking advantage of the critical time survivors have to move from surviving to meaningfully thriving in their lives.

Revisioning

The program recognizes the practice of regular reflection and action. Planning a program has many unknowns. It is important to take time periodically to look at the work to date, examine the direction the program is headed and give thought to whether this is where the program wanted to be, or maybe is not headed in the desired direction. Looking at how things are going and making adjustments to the needs of the program on all levels, ensuring it's serving survivors in meaningful life-changing ways.

Revisioning is a time to look back at what we have been doing, and ask ourselves critical questions. We do this while still being forward facing, wanting to make adjustments to ensure we are headed in the right direction we want to go.

Getting Started	Pre-program – Developing the idea, figuring out the need for the program, securing resources. ·       What is transitional housing? ·       Does the community need one? ·       How will we do it? ·       Create our vision?
Basic Programming	Years 1 to 2 – Now that we got funded, what do we do? We are often filled with excitement about the possibilities. ·       Put in place policies; ·       Refine initial program design; ·       Start serving survivors.
Established Programming	Year 1 to 5 – We have put in place the core program components that are culturally centered. ·       Safety; ·       Crisis response ·       Advocacy  ·       Recovery from Violence
Enhanced Programming	Year 3 to 5 or more – We built community partnerships to strengthen our resources and supports for survivors. Our program components have expanded to provide a more responsive range of options.

Works Cited

Simon, J. S., & Donovan, J. (2002). Five Life Stages of Nonprofit Organizations: Where You Are, Where You're Going, and What to Expect When You Get There. New York, New York: Fieldstone Alliance (Kindle Edition).