Facilitators
[University of Vermont 2016 Summit]
A successful forum hinges on the opportunity for dialogue. Trained facilitators play an essential role to achieve this. Identify facilitators as you develop the invitation list. Ask planning committee members to examine their networks and make recommendations. Be clear about the role you are asking them to fill and provide background on the forum when inviting potential facilitators.
Ohio 2019 Forum - Facilitators guiding groups
Provide at least a one-hour training for facilitators (via phone, in-person or online). During this training, make introductions and orient facilitators to the forum objectives, agenda, and activities they will be facilitating. Include time for open discussion about best practices and questions during the training. Schedule time to meet with facilitators in person the morning of the forum for a brief orientation and answer last minute questions. Facilitation is a learned skill and effective facilitators guide a discussion without dominating conversation making it easy for group members to contribute. The facilitator has the difficult but important job of keeping group members focused, present, and engaged. The more contentious the issue, the more trained your facilitators need to be in managing group members and staying on track with the agenda. Facilitators can also be the group note taker, summarizing main points that establish common understanding, giving a speaker opportunity to clarify if they feel misunderstood, and creating documentation that can be referred to later for future reporting or planning. There are multiple resources for group facilitation and developing ground rules. We suggest you explore these three resources: 1. Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision -Making - https://www.storypikes.com/workshops/PDFs/Facilitators%20Guide%20to%20Parti cipation%20by%20Sam%20Kaner%20with%20Lenny%20Lind-Catherine%20Toldi- Sarah%20Fisk%20and%20Duane%20Berger-2007.pdf
2. World Café - https://theworldcafe.com/ 3. Community Toolbox - https://ctb.ku.edu/en (available in Spanish)
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