Facilitation Skills

Facilitation is improvisational work requiring knowledge and skills, a clear sense of purpose, and the ability to pay attention to several dimensions simultaneously. Facilitators attend to task focus, process skills, and group development. They invite active engagement and help individuals work as a cohesive group. In this two-day seminar, participants will acquire and refine maps and tools to increase flexibility, confidence, and authenticity as a facilitator. As Garmston and Wellman explained in the Adaptive School: A Sourcebook for Developing Collaborative Groups (2016), “A facilitator manages processes so that a group can plan, problem solve, share information, evaluate, and make decisions efficiently and effectively. A facilitator also works to improve group members’ ability to work together effectively and helps groups to improve their processes.”