Top Image: Gowland Todd Provincial Park near Victoria

A competency model can connect communities, help to build expertise and even create new professions

At Ibbaka we are supporting the work of the ResiliencebyDesign (RbD) team at Royal Roads University in their development of a competency model for Adaptation to Climate Change. This team, led by Dr. Robin Cox, has been commissioned to design a competency model for adaptation to climate change as part of the Inspiring Climate Action project.

In an earlier post, we looked at Architecting the Competencies for Adaptation to Climate Change Open Competency Model.

Here we speak with Dr. Cox to get her insights into her vision for this important work.

TeamFit: Please share with us something about your background, what brought you to your interest in adaptation to climate change?

Dr. Cox: I have been thinking about this a lot recently. I have always been predisposed to this, having grown up with a strong social justice orientation in my family. I have had many careers, from film and television and news broadcasting to getting my doctorate as a counseling psychologist. Storytelling and making a difference in peoples’ lives are important threads through all of these careers.

For more than fifteen years now, I have been working in disaster and emergency management, specifically on the psychosocial side, that is to say, the human and social side of disasters. How disasters become disasters, how they get constructed. A natural hazard doesn’t make a disaster. Our choices as humans, where we live, where and how we build our homes and communities, the inequalities that result from our economic and social systems, and even how we respond to the hazard, that is what makes the disaster. As a psychologist I worked from a strengths-based orientation on personal resilience and healing; my work with disasters has led me to think about resilience also at the community level, and how we build resilience into our systems.

Over the last decade, I have been increasingly focused on the links between climate change and disasters, and the intersections between climate mitigation and adaptation, and disaster risk reduction. Climate change is an accelerant – creating more frequent and more destructive disasters, and in both cases, resilience will come from understanding and addressing the underlying causes, not only the symptoms or impacts.

I was hired as a faculty member at Royal Roads to help establish and run the Disaster and Emergency Management programme. Early on in the programme, we were not talking about climate change. Over time we have integrated the discussion of climate change a little bit more, but these two disciplines have been largely siloed, especially here in North America. There is a growing recognition of the need for scholars and practitioners in these two disciplinary areas to work together more, but there is still a long way to go. People working in disaster management and those working in climate adaptation need to intersect more fully. Disaster risk management is a critical component of climate change adaptation policies and plans – reducing disaster risks and vulnerabilities will reduce the human and economic losses and, if done well, will initiate and amplify adaptation efforts.

So, my focus on adaptation to climate change is a result of my growing understanding of how important it is to connect the two disciplines, together with a growing awareness of the depth and urgency of the climate crises. Over the past five or six years, the information available has made it more and more obvious that anthropogenic climate change and our failure to take action on it is the critical issue we face, and that we have to act on.

I recognize the absolute urgency for us to mitigate our carbon emissions, and that this is the only hope we have for avoiding cataclysmic impacts from climate change. And the impacts are already horrible in the Global South and Arctic regions.. But I also recognize that, given the gap between what we need to do on mitigation and what we are doing, globally and nationally, we already need to adapt, and will need to do more and more of that in the future. Addressing climate change and climate impacts requires significant changes on our part if we are to avoid causing enormous suffering, loss of life, and the degradation or collapse of entire ecosystems.

There is a sense of urgency that draws me to this, and a profound awareness of and desire to address the injustices that cause and result from disasters and climate change. At the same time, I know from my work as a psychologist, that in order for us to move forward we have to give people some sense of hope that change is possible, and some sense of concrete, practical ways for them to act to address this issue. The antidote to despair is action, and we need to mobilize widespread action. We need to understand and anticipate what is going to happen, the impact that not addressing climate change will have on us as individuals and collectively, and we need to move forward to both reduce our carbon emissions – to mitigate – and to reduce vulnerabilities and support our individual and shared capacity to adapt to a rapidly changing world.

This is the work of the ResilienceByDesign Innovation Lab here at Royal Roads University, or as we call it, the RbD. We are investing in supporting this mobilization and capacity building. A lot of our action research and programming is investing in young people, not because we should be placing our hope on them, but because they are growing up in this context. They will be living with the consequences of our decisions much longer than we adults will be. For a much greater part of their lives they will be forced to live with the impacts of climate change, however bad they get, and how bad they get depends on what we do. But the RbD is also investing in building the capacity, resilience, and action of adults

As Greta Thunberg said to the leaders gathered to listen to her, “you look to us for hope, how dare you.” As adults, we have a responsibility to get our own act together and start to address this crisis head-on.

The RbD is leading a project called the Inspiring Climate Action Project – a project focused on building the expertise and capacity for adaptation action of working professionals such as foresters, agrologists, engineers and planners. This is a similar investment to those we are making with youth. The project is focused on supporting professionals’ understanding of climate science and the regional and local impacts of climate change, and building their capacity to integrate that into the work that they do now and in the future. So for example, anticipating the impacts of extended droughts and changing weather patterns on food production and wildfires, or understanding and taking actions to address the impacts of more extreme and less predictable precipitation on water management. We need to consider sea level rise and what that means in terms of potential land loss and erosion or salt incursion into fresh water supplies and agricultural land. We need to begin doing this work now in ways that support our capacity to adapt as we move into this future.

TeamFit: You have led the development of other competency models such as the disaster psychosocial competency model. What did you learn from this work that you are bringing to the development of this model?

Dr. Cox: In good measure, I learned that competency models are complex. There is a broad range in what we mean by the word “competency” or what we mean by skills, let alone how we construct models for competencies, so coming to clarity on what we mean by these terms and how they fit together into a model is critical. There is probably no one right way to do it, but one has to come into a shared understanding of what these things are to move forward with creating such a model.

Linking competencies to real-world applications and actions is critical. For example, the disaster psychosocial competency model I worked on, arose from a need identified in the context of responding to the psychological and social needs of disaster survivors. I was part of a program, the Disaster Psychological Services program, which is now entrenched in and supported by the Ministry of Health. It is part of our emergency management system in BC. In that programme we had, and still have, a variety of professionals who volunteer to respond in disasters to support the people in communities, and who provide the needed psychological and emotional support for these communities after a disaster. To ensure we were recruiting and deploying people with the right skills, and also supporting these volunteers building their own capacity to respond effectively, we needed to identify what competencies were required to do psychosocial response work.

In developing the competency model, we looked at

‘What are we asking these people to do?’
‘What do we hold them accountable for?’
‘What do the people who work with them need to know about their work?’

My learning from this work on the disaster psychosocial competency model is to have very clear and thoughtful links to the foundational practice of the professionals we were recruiting. For the disaster psychosocial competency model, this was psychologists, counselors, social workers, and victim services workers. For the adaptation to climate change model, this means working with and learning from, engineers, agrologists, planners, foresters and many others, because adaptation crosses all sectors and livelihoods.

Making the links to these professionals is one key.

The other key is to make the framework or model usable. There is no point in having a really complex model that no one feels they can apply. Then it is just a theoretical exercise that may be useful in some space but is not useful in the way that I am talking about. That means the model may not be as detailed as it could be, but will have the right buckets and enough detail to be useful, but also leaving room for flexibility or interpretation across multiple professions.

Really thinking through who your end users are, is also part of this process. For the adaptation to climate change model this is going to be challenging as we have so many different professions involved, each of which will have their own needs and may share some similar needs and competencies. We have tried to capture this flexibility and the need to support different professions into the design of the model. The model has to be robust but also flexible.

TeamFit: In retrospect, now that people have used the psychosocial model, what have you learned about how to keep the model dynamic and usable.

Dr. Cox: As with most things, as life and knowledge and practice evolve, it is important to revisit and see if things still fit. You have to be willing to modify the model in response to its use.

I am sure we will see this with the adaptation competency model. We are going to make as robust a model as possible, with input from disciplinary knowledge holders and from people experienced in building and using competency models. And we will pilot and test the model and refine it based on what users say. Two or three years from now, however, we will need to revisit the model again to see how it is working. This will be especially important with an adaptation to climate change competency model, as the climate adaptation field is still a young field and the field itself will have to adapt to what is coming, as climate science evolves and as we learn more about adapting to climate change in practice. We have models and projections, but none of us know for sure what is going to happen. We have to build a living model, one that can evolve. I am sure that is true for any competency model. As disciplines evolve, the model has also to evolve.

For example, with the disaster psychosocial model, if I were still working with it, I would want to look more deeply into the competencies needed for working with and within First Nations and other indigenous communities, and whether there are dimensions of the model that would need to be refined or revised to reflect different cultural norms and contexts. In Canada, many of our disasters impact remote and rural communities and it would be worth exploring how the existing model fits in those contexts, and whether it needs revising, or perhaps a separate model.

As awareness, knowledge and the social context evolves, it is important to take that evolution into account.

TeamFit: How have you gone about developing the adaptation to climate change model? Who has been contributing?

Dr. Cox: We set about this by exploring the idea of a competency model as part of our proposal. I proposed this as part of our project with Natural Resources Canada based on my experience, and recognition of the importance of competency models for supporting good practice, and for guiding the development of courses and other learning opportunities. One of the key deliverables for the Inspiring Climate Action project is professional development climate change adaptation training courseware. Similarly, at Royal Roads, we have been thinking about developing a for-credit degree programme in Climate Action Leadership. Learning objectives for both the not-for-credit professional development courses, and the for credit Masters programme should be linked to the knowledge and skills or competencies identified through this framework development process. A person who emerges from training or with a degree should be confident that they have invested in developing competencies that have been identified through systematic research, or in other words, based on evidence.

The first step in our process was to hire a colleague, Susanna Niederer, an alumnus of the Masters in Disaster and Emergency program at RRU, and someone who worked with the City of Calgary’s Adaptation Planning Team to help them develop an adaptation plan. Susanna and I dove into the literature on adaptation and competency framework development to see what is known about climate change adaptation competencies across different sectors and in many different spheres. We also drew on her lived experience as a practitioner doing adaptation work here in Canada and in Switzerland where she currently works and lives.

This initial scoping resulted in a very long list of necessary and relevant skills, knowledge and behaviours. We clustered those into groups as an initial stab at identifying competencies. Working with Susanna, and other members of the project such as Vivian Forsman, our project manager and an educational and curriculum design consultant, and the people at TeamFit, we have realized several things.

One, that we need to take a step back and make sure that we had a shared understanding of core terminology and a shared understanding of the foundational architecture for the framework. That was the work that we did with you face-to-face (see our initiative on open competency models) and one key lesson is that we should have done this work earlier in the process.

Now that we have this shared understanding, we are taking another look at the vast amount of material we have gathered and asking ‘Where do things fit? And ‘What’s missing?’ It is a return but with a clear architecture.

Once that work is done, we will take that solid first draft back out into the community to do consultation interviews with subject matter experts. This will include practitioners from various disciplines, experts in competencies, adaptation experts, and end-users. We want to make sure that what we are doing reflects best practice and makes sense. ‘Is it too complex? or ‘Not complex enough?’ Then we will work with TeamFit to evolve the model. We will continue the consultations at Adaptation 2020, a national adaptation conference in February of next year. We will use the feedback we get there to further refine the model and then we will have a pilot model that we can publish on the TeamFit skills management platform. Once it is available, we will continue to consult and gather feedback from people and organizations using it to ensure we end up with an Adaptation to Climate Change competency model that is as solid and usable as possible.

As you know, the framework will have a comprehensive set of competencies for people who will become adaptation professionals – that is the big bucket – and will be structured in such a way that people working in various disciplines such as engineering or planning can identify the additional adaptation competencies they need to add in or amplify in their own professions – the sub-buckets as it were. In other words, we don’t expect every discipline to implement every competency. They already have disciplinary or profession-specific competencies. In the context of climate change, those existing competencies will now need to be augmented with competencies that support the work of adaptation in their professional practice. So, the design of the framework is modular and can be adapted in parts to various professions. We will ask ‘Which of these fits, if any?” as we expect to see the framework used in multiple ways. We will collect data and feedback and continue to w refine the framework for the life of this 3-year project. This is meant to be a living framework that evolves based on user feedback and contextual changes that we can’t really anticipate.

TeamFit: Is there other work going on around the world that complements what your team is doing? How do you see this competency model fitting into the larger ecology you are creating?

Dr. Cox: One way it fits in is that the design of this project is based on partnerships with professional associations and post-secondary institutions. As I said earlier, we are working with these partners to design, develop and deliver professional development, training and education that supports professionals developing capacities adaptation. When you are designing a course the instructional objectives need to link back to the competencies.

Over time, this work needs to connect to a much larger geography of courses – for credit and not-for credit – being developed across British Columbia and Canada. Like any new area of practice, adaptation as a discipline or as part of other disciplines will evolve, and it should evolve within the framework of building competencies and capabilities. It needs to be robust enough that it can be used y in the design of both not-for-credit programming, and degree programming and professional development more generally.

On the other side, I hope the framework will help people who are hiring experts in adaptation, people such as human resource professionals working with municipalities, engineering and consulting firms, planning organizations. And our goal is that it will also help people with the competencies – such as consultants – to demonstrate and frame their expertise.

(At this point, one of the impacts of climate change intruded, as a large demonstration by truck loggers, who have had their livelihoods damaged by changes in the forest industry. There are many causes of these changes, but one is the pine beetle infestation associated with climate change. The truck loggers had brought their rigs down into Vancouver and were driving through the downtown area blasting their horns.)

In a more general sense, having been involved in disaster and emergency management as an educator and practitioner, I have seen the field evolve. Climate change adaptation is also an emerging disciplinary field. Whether it will become its own discipline, or become a significant part of other disciplines, or most likely, some combination of both, remains to be seen. In the disaster and emergency response field, things have become more formalized and professionalized over time, so that we have clearer, evidence-informed ideas of what people need to do and be in a broad range of roles and jobs. I imagine that adaptation to climate change will also professionalize and that a competency model can help with this.

At Royal Roads University, our model is that of the scholar-practitioner, and competency models are one way to connect the scholarship to actual practice.

There is definitely interest from our funders at Natural Resources Canada and the Climate Action Secretariat in taking this work beyond BC and ensuring the model is both widely informed, and widely available at a national and international level. Our aspiration and that of our funders are to develop something that is usable across multiple contexts.

The very complexity of the causes and impacts of climate change require that adaptation be integrated into every livelihood, and every aspect of our society, whether economic, political, individual or social. We hope that the framework will help with this and will help to make the connections between different professions evident. Adaptation requires not only whole of society approach, but also one that relies on collaboration across disciplines and sectors.

The distinction between adaptation and mitigation is important, but the two are also closely connected and often overlap. A commonly used example is planting trees. It’s probably overused and planting trees is not “the” answer but one of many approaches and actions that will be needed as we adapt to climate change. Planting trees is an important mitigation strategy because trees sequester carbon, or pull carbon out of the air and can contribute, for example to reducing soil erosion in the face of more extreme precipitation events, and increasing cooling and psychological well being in urban environments. Planting trees and forest management are also part of adaptation. Understanding what species will be most climate hardy, and what methods of reforesting are most beneficial to supporting adaptation to drought, and other climate-related issues, is part of adaptation. Reforesting obviously has other adaptive benefits including providing habitat that supports species diversity and survival. So mitigation and adaptation are very interconnected and both very necessary. It’s why we have called this project the Inspiring Climate Action project, because action encompasses both.

TeamFit: What are some of the other work going on around the world that complements what you are doing?

Dr. Cox: There is a lot of work on adaptation going on in many different places around the world. But even though climate change and atmospheric warming are global, the impacts of climate are primarily regional and local. So a lot of this adaptation work has to be relevant at the local level. It needs to be addressing issues as they are expressed where we live. So there is working happening at the national level, especially on mitigation, and there is a lot of work happening at regional and local community levels that focuses on adaptation while also keeping mitigation in mind. There are other groups developing adaptation focused courses and a few other places that are developing competencies and asking what adaptation competencies are needed.

One of these is the Association of Climate Change Officers (ACCO), which has developed a certification that leans more towards the mitigation side of the climate action spectrum. There is another group in the U.S. that is more adaptation focussed, the American Society of Adaptation Professionals (ASAP). ASAP has been developing a competency model, though it seems to be a much higher level model than what we are envisioning. There are also people moving in this direction in Europe who have expressed interest in the work we are doing.

The need for adaptation is becoming more widely recognized, and the poorer we do at slowing and/or eliminating carbon emissions, the more work we have to do now, and will have to do in the future to adapt. But the bottom line is that we are not going to be able to adapt our way out of this crisis. We need to change fundamental systems that have contributed to climate change – economic systems based on perpetual economic growth and consumption, inequalities, human behaviors that continue to ignore the detrimental impacts we are having on the natural environment.

TeamFit: What role is the TeamFit platform playing?

Dr. Cox: It is not just the platform, it is the people at TeamFit! Working directly with us to design the architecture has been critical. The web-based platform offers the potential for a broader reach and use of the framework.

TeamFit not only provides access to competency models, it helps people organize their thinking about themselves and the work and learning they do. Once completed, you will be able to explore the model and all its different parts and this is one way to grow one’s understanding of what adaptation to climate change really involves.

Depending on how people use TeamFit, it can help professionals define their careers and highlight their skills and experience. It can also help people see what further training they may want to seek, and experiences they want to build.

On the other side, the platform can help people design jobs and find the expertise they need for their organizations. A platform like this is critical to building new capabilities in organizations.

TeamFit: What are some of your other interests and passions?

Dr. Cox: These days this work has become all-consuming, it is so important and there is so much to do. That said, I like gardening, I love animals and I have cats and would like to have a dog at some point. When I can get away, I like light hiking and I love lake swimming. This is part of the inspiration for my work. I want to leave a world that can be enjoyed by people in the future in the ways in which I have been blessed.

One hike I like around Victoria BC is the one around Thetis Lake. There are a lot of different places to explore. Thetis Lake is also a good place for lake swimming! I feel truly blessed to live in Canada, and in this part of Canada, and I want to do everything I can to preserve this kind of environment and to support people here and around the globe being able to live lives that are connected to nature and the wellbeing and joy that those connections can bring.

Ibbaka Posts on Competency Models and Competency Frameworks

Competency models as learning plans

Competencies for Adaptation to Climate Change – An Interview with Dr. Robin Cox

A competency model can connect communities, help to build expertise and even create new professions

Ibbaka Posts on Competency Models and Competency Frameworks

Webinar – Five Strategies that Enable HR to Drive Business Growth with Claude Werder of the Brandon Hall Group

Permission to design slowly