Scaling-Up Brief 2: Intensive Technical Assistance

Technical Assistance (TA) is designed to build the capacity of individuals and organizations to achieve desired outcomes. During the past decade technical assistance, like many educational initiatives, has been reconceptualized as a multi-tiered approach along a continuum from basic to intensive. Basic technical assistance is the most efficient foundation for facilitating change, and includes providing documentation of evidence-based options, disseminating both examples of success and materials that facilitate success, and providing overview workshops that may assist others in the planning, implementation and use of existing tools to achieve desired change. Basic TA is effective in many contexts, but like other multi-tiered models is recognized as insufficient to achieve systems change in all contexts. When the scale or depth of change is more extensive, Basic TA efforts need to be supplemented with more Intensive Technical Assistance.