The Training of Trainers Manual - UNFPA

Closure
Explain that no matter what recruitment strategy is used, programmes should seek
to represent their target audience and choose recruits based on the objectives of
a project. This often means selecting a balance in gender, vulnerability, and age.
Emphasize that making recruits and selected individuals aware from the beginning
of what is expected will help to decrease turnover or dropping out. Finally, they
should look for people who are charismatic facilitators, organized workers, modest
observers, and sensitive communicators.
Training note
Building and retaining a peer educator team
After recruiting and training a team of peer educators, it is useful to develop a contract
of expectations with them. The contract should be a result of collaboration with peer
educators, trainers, and program staff. This contract acts as guidelines to help peer
educators understand their roles. It also establishes clear responsibilities from the
beginning and a timeline of commitment.
Ask the team to agree to abide by the contract and sign it. The contract should include:
▼ Guidelines about attendance, punctuality, and following established
ground rules.
▼ Notification if team members know they will be absent (for example, if they have
a doctor’s appointment). Participants should understand that if they miss some
training sessions, they are responsible for gathering the relevant information that
they have missed. Explain that excessive absences or tardiness might be grounds
for reassessing suitability for the team and that participants will be given warnings
if their continued participation is in question.
All team members should have certain basic skills, although some might be specialists
with a particular talent in a given area. Experience shows that many peer education
groups naturally fall into a pattern in which they tend to rely on the same people to
do the same things. For example, the group may begin to rely too much on one or two
of the educators to provide scientific or medical information. If the group’s ‘experts’
are suddenly unavailable for a training session, the others may feel incompetent or
unqualified to present the relevant teaching unit.
102 Training of Trainers Manual