Training for transformation 'creative facilitation' techniques

The past few months I have been training in and facilitating 'creative facilitation' workshops and movements. This combines discovery, learning and action at the personal, interpersonal and wider Society dimensions of life. A basic belief underlying the training is that community development and working for change needs to address these three aspects of life.

Creative facilitation embodies skills from 'transformative education' and facilitates people's personal journey in relation to the wider environment, strengthening facilitators understandings of themselves and their approach. Creative facilitation further encapsulates principles of popular education, interpersonal skills, listening skills, dealing with conflict, leadership skills, critical community psychology and community self-reliance. This approach helps a facilitator and understand the group they work with, engage in the fundamentals of participatory practice, gain a grasp on a wide range of techniques and tactics and have an enhanced ability to creatively respond to the demands and challenges of personal- political facilitation techniques which help build strong groups and movements for social change. By motivating training through helping groups find the root causes of problems, it is ideal for adult education, social workers, community organisers, spiritual activists, trade unions, and all those concerned with creating social justice.

On the workshop we attended to four areas: theory, skills, practice/experience and the understanding of the self (your approach, passions and motivations). Each of these elements and the interplay between them is essential to good facilitation.