PLANNING A TERRITORIAL NETWORK Tips for success

Putting different know-how bearers and educators together is necessary but not necessarily conducive to successful outcomes. Efficient cooperation and synergy on the part of human resources might sometimes be sabotaged by lack of flexibility in the overall organization structure and low degree of autonomy of staff. More structural flexibility is needed (especially in schools), based on innovative forms of coollaborative work. It is a must for network partners to get to know each other well enough as to understand each other’s missions and scopes. Defensive styles and reciprocal one-down positions are detrimental to good relationships. For a successful transfer of GP all of the institutional territorial shareholders must be involved, as well as all the entities engaged in the training/learning process: schools, training agencies, companies, local councils.

The whole process of planning must find support in formal agreements and negotiative tools (network agreements and contracts). Formal agreements and contracts should include jointly-planned activities and communication activities between partners, as well as clearly defined objectives, monitoring tools and ex-ante, in itinere and final assessment strategies targeted to evaluate how well the network works and how effective the territorial labs are. LARSA should be custom tailored around every single learner’s needs, capacities, competencies, abilities, and life projects. Putting each and every learner first is the philosophy of the idea behind the LARSA. Partners already familiar with successful cooperative networking experience are the best choice. If experienced partners are not available, then effective and intense communication between members is needed, as well as effort in building commonly shared objectives, values, vocabulary, teaching strategies and evaluation methods. In short everyone within the system must contribute to build a clear network identity, where differences are perceived as values and similarities add up to the strenghts.

Staff and personnel Training to work in a network Adequate training should be provided for all the operators in the LARSA experience, both in terms of planning skills and of network- related tasks to be completed within the LARSA. It is of outmost importance for all of the operators to agree to work together cooperatively, regardless of the status and profile of each institutional entity involved in the network. All operators must be open to acquire new skills, to learn more and to practice soft skills (negotiating, communicating effectively etc). There is no such thing as a clearly defined “network manager”. However, the Leonardo Vet Governance outcomes could be regarded as a toolkit for the definition of a professional profile.

vetgovernance.it features a training module specifically designed to help education and professional training operators acquire know- how on how to work cooperatively in a network. the learning modules/objects are avaliable in Spanish, English and Italian. It might be helpful to link reloadproject.eu to the VetGovernance modules and possibly start discussion threads relevant to the trainers and operators involved in building LARSA experience.