Core activity #07
Virtual Workshop for Thailand Wildlife Health Network Leadership Series
On 11, 13, 25, and 26 January 2023, the virtual workshop for the Thailand Wildlife Health Network Leadership Series was held via the Webex application. Participants from key partners including the Department of National Park and Wildlife Conservation (DNP), the Department of Livestock Development (DLD), the Department of Marine and Coastal Resource (DMCR), the Zoological Park Organization of Thailand (ZPOT), and the Monitoring and Surveillance Center for Zoonotic Diseases in Wildlife and Exotic Animals (MoZWE) were invited to participate the workshop. In this workshop, it was honored to have Dr. Craig Stephen and Dr. Jonathan M Sleeman as a speaker and facilitators, respectively.
In the workshop, there were 4 sessions as described following.
The session 1, the topic is about general principles for building and sustaining a coalition or network. It can be concluded that diverse information from many people is needed to collect the information needed for a national wildlife health program. The networks are ways to connect data, observations, understanding, and analysis from multiple sources into a shared outcome. It can also be the most efficient way to allocate resources and expertise sharing from different groups.
The session 2, the topic is about building and leading a wildlife health network: building your theory of change. Building and leading a network should be informed by a Change Model, the Theory of Change’ by Lewin and Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model. The foundations for building a network include vision, purpose, mission, operational plan, and value. Leadership should work with other partners to assess the situation and plan network action. Network development must address 3 critical questions; What are we trying to do? What must happen?, and Why do we need to do it? To make change happen, we need a ‘Champion for Change’ who is very interested in a different way of doing something and is determined to make changes happen. Champions have to advocate for network creation and support through the SMART advocacy cycle.
The session 3, the topic is about leadership and governance for collective action. The examples of successful networks that were discussed included the International Alliance Against Health Risk in Wildlife Trade, Northeast Wildlife Disease Cooperative, Building Networks of Caribbean Professionals, and National Wildlife Health Surveillance. The participants discussed that the factors of success for building and leading networks are vision and plan, communication, sharing, helpfulness, patience, money chasing, and relationship attention. To building capacity for the network, it should start with looking at the vision, mission, and goals. Moreover, the key network capacities depend on the partnership, leadership and governance, knowledge, people, funds, and structures.
The session 4, the topic is about how to inspire action and support for your network. The expectation for the wildlife health network depends on the goals and objectives of the project, which might target one or all of the international, theoretical, national, or local expectations. In this session, the participants defined priority functions that must be created and critical capacities needed for the beginning of the planning process for the wildlife health network. In addition, the visions, purposes, and missions were indicated.