Guide for Community Assessments on Women's Health Care - ICRW

Active Listening – When participants know that they are being heard and understood, they
are more likely to be open about sharing their experiences, thoughts and feelings. This is
particularly important when you are encouraging women to talk about sensitive and taboo
subjects such as sex, gender-based violence, abortion, etc.
Active listening involves:
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Eye contact – Looking at the person to show interest and understanding.
Encouragers – Signals to the other person that you are listening (e.g., nodding your head,
saying things like “Yes…. Okay…. I see…. Tell me more….”)
Rephrasing at points to check that you have understood what she/he is saying.
Probing is a technique where you ask questions to get more in<strong>for</strong>mation on an issue, find out
the views of other people, find out how people feel about an issue or look <strong>for</strong> solutions to a
problem. General responses are normally unsatisfactory. You need more details so you have a clear
understanding of the problem and how people want to solve it. The more detail, the more valuable
the data. However, probing should always be linked to the purpose of the exercise – don’t probe just
<strong>for</strong> the sake of it. Use neutral language to ensure that participants are not influenced by the beliefs of
the facilitator.
Probing can be used in the following circumstances:
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When you don’t understand what a participant or group has said.
When someone has said something interesting and relevant to your discussion and you would
like to hear more about it.
When someone has said something vague or general and you are looking <strong>for</strong> more specific
details (ask <strong>for</strong> examples).
When you want to highlight the difference between two situations or gain understanding about
the thinking behind an exercise (e.g., why is syphilis a top priority, but thrush is only a low
priority illness?)
When you want to address a certain issue that has not been mentioned in the discussion.
(However, if the topic is not discussed after some probing or prompting, then you can bring it
up yourself or move on to another topic – don’t turn the discussion into a guessing game!)
Handing Over Control of the Process
You are leading the workshop, but during exercises such as body mapping, it is important to let
participants take control. Hand over the marker pens and let participants make the body maps
and add the extra notes. They will demonstrate and explain how they view the body, its parts and
the diseases. If you try to control this activity, you will stop participants from telling their story. Be
patient, let groups take the lead and minimize interruptions. Your role is to ask probing questions to
get them to think more deeply.
66 Chapter D: Tips <strong>for</strong> Running Participatory Workshops