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After Sunday, in partnership with the Education Division of the Church of England, is developing an on-line resource to encourage the use of facilitation skills in the wider church to support adult learning and transformational living.

We hope that these skills will be useful and relevant in a number of differing contexts for example:

• Supporting small groups / house groups in exploring discipleship in the everyday
• Encouraging tutors in more formal tutor groups to operate in facilitative ways
• Improve problem solving in church communities and so enable change
• Stimulate more participative decision making
• Encouraging theological reflection in small groups
• Enabling a 'learning' community

We would very much value any helpful comments and ideas about what we are seeking to achieve and invite you to share any useful resources that you think might be helpful to potential facilitators.

Overview of the modules

We are planning to structure the programme into 10 modules.  Do these seem appropriate?

1. Introduction to facilitation 
   What is facilitation, what is the purpose of facilitation and why is it so important.
   What do people value about being facilitated.
   Compare and contrast facilitation with teaching.
   Qualities of a good facilitator
2. Adult learning
   How adults like to learn – key principles.
   Encouraging and enabling learning in groups
   The learning cycle and the importance of starting with experience.
   Transformational learning – learning that brings about change
3. Getting a session off the ground - how and where to start
   Clarifying and agreeing aims for a session.
   Groups vs individuals – what is the focus.
   Clarifying the expectations of the facilitator and the group.
   Agreeing group guidelines
4. Designing powerful Questions
   The key to facilitation. What makes for a powerful question that provokes understanding
5. Participation and engagement
   Ensuring participation from everyone, equal airtime and active listening and recording of ideas. Affirming and encouraging contribution
   Balancing input, sharing and discussion
6. Steering the process
   Steering the discussion and keeping a focus.
   Managing the time and energy.
   How challenging should the facilitator be.
   Having a design that enables you to stay in control
7. Dealing with differences and conflicts
   Designing the process to avoid / minimise difficulties and issues with group members.
   Sticking to the process or being flexible
   Dealing with the unexpected
8. Summarising and drawing discussions together
   What is possible. Making decisions. Moving forward
9. Drawing out the learning and action planning
   Reviewing the process -what has been learned
   Checking understanding
   Checking against aims and learning objectives
   Agreeing next practical steps.
   Bringing about change. No transformation without action
10. Practical issues
    Planning a session and an outline process including practical matters – room layout , equipment Refreshments / Breaks. Flipcharts etc

The learning process

The skills of facilitation can only be effectively practised in real life experience and so there is clearly a limit as to what is possible through on-line learning.  However it is at least realistic to encourage learners to think about and reflect on their own experience and to develop some new insights by drawing on the experience of others.  This at least offers a basis of planning their next approach when facilitating.

We plan to use a series of learning activities including:

• Questions and exercises that help people to think and reflect
• Audio discussion by a panel of experienced facilitators
• Exercises that help learners to make appropriate judgements for themselves
• A video case study to illustrate some of the skills in practice
• Short video snippets of people sharing their war stories
• Handouts and other resource materials

If you have any exercise or ideas about the learning process can you please let us know

Thank you

After Sunday Team

What do you think of the outline programme?

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