As Targeted Solutions supports organizations in the process of growing and changing to meet new challenges and realities, we also continuously expand and enhance our services to meet our clients’ needs.

Over the past year, Targeted Solutions has developed and refined a group technical assistance model that will form part of our continuum of services moving forward. The group model serves as a bridge between time- and resource-intensive individual consulting projects and basic, introductory training.

While training often focuses on the individual and on specified knowledge or skill development, group technical assistance focuses on the organization as a whole and encourages multiple staff members to attend. While imparting new skills and knowledge, the process is highly reflective and focuses on participants’ application of information and concepts to current issues within their organizations. For example, participants might be asked to bring organizational documents such as a strategic plan or logic model to assist in this reflective process.

Unlike traditional training, the group process does not end after a single session. Targeted Solutions consultants follow up with attendees to help them identify next steps, clarify concepts and generally advance the organization’s capacity in that particular area.

The group model combines some of the best aspects of training, such as providing peer learning opportunities and exchanges, with the features of more in-depth, individualized consulting projects, but in a manner less costly for organizations in terms of time and money. In the field of adult learning, there is extensive research-based evidence that adults learn best in small peer groups and that much of that learning is informal. With the new program model, Targeted Solutions aims to increase networking and information sharing among participating groups, thereby strengthening their respective sectors as a whole.

“We’re very fortunate,” says Amy Friedlander, vice president for Management Services and Special Initiatives at PHMC, “that William Penn Foundation, which generously supports Targeted Solutions, is interested in these new ways to effectively provide technical assistance.”

On September 22, from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., Targeted Solutions will host a group technical assistance workshop on Outcomes Measurement. To register for this and future workshops, visit targetedsolutions.phmc.org.