The Transition Healthcheck is designed to help you:
• Reflect on where your initiative
has got to
• Spark conversations about what’s
working well and what could be
strengthened
• Celebrate your strengths and successes
• Identify areas which might need more
work, skills, or resources
• Clarify appropriate next steps – which
might include doing less.
Many groups have found that using the Healthcheck raises lots of questions, and sometimes the discussion it starts supplies the answers. The focus is on how your initiative is working.
Every Transition group is different in the mix of people involved, the opportunities and challenges of your context, and the external events that influence people to join, or not. We hope the result of doing the Healthcheck is that you celebrate what you have achieved rather than feeling overwhelmed with what hasn’t happened. No initiative that we know of could get it all right!
We like to think of the Healthcheck in terms of an animal. It’s not a particular animal: for different cultures, animals have different connotations. So it’s an animal, with 4 legs, a tail, head, the usual. Ours looks oddly like Pikachu (from Pokemon), but you can imagine it as you wish.
Its four legs represent the foundations, the four elements without which your Transition group isn’t going anywhere. They are:
1. Get your community involved in Transition
2. Healthy Groups
3. Networks and Partnerships
4. Practical projects
Have an honest and open discussion in your group about how well you are doing each of these? You could give each a mark between 1 and 5.
Next, our animal’s eyes represent Vision. How clear would you say your group’s vision was, for itself and for what it wants to create?
The heart represents Reflect and Celebrate. Does your group have a healthy heartbeat? Are you taking time regularly to reflect and celebrate together?
Lastly, the world around our animal is Part of a Movement. To what extent does your group feel connected to Transition groups in your area, to the Transition movement nationally as well as internationally?
Participants at the 2015 Transition Roadshow in Lancaster undertaking the Transition Healthcheck for their initiative.