The Project on Civic Reflection will hold two-day facilitation training workshops in downtown Chicago on April 29th-30th and October 21st-22nd, 2010. For more information and a registration form for either training, click here.

Facilitation Training Workshops

Are you interested in learning to lead reflective conversations about values and choices with your students, your community, your professional network, the board or staff of your organization, your program participants?

Are you interested in developing a corps of facilitators who can lead such discussions in your city or state, network or program?

Civic Reflection Facilitation Training Workshops help participants learn how to facilitate civic reflection discussions, which use reflective reading and conversation to open up important questions or issues for the community.

Led by Project staff members who are nationally recognized experts in the art of humanities-based discussion, these trainings blend brief presentations, group discussion, and hands-on facilitating. Trainings include experienced facilitators as well as those new to civic reflection, allowing participants to learn from each other.

The group engages in civic reflection conversations, learns about different types of guiding questions, and receives advice on handling the responsibilities and challenges that arise during the course of facilitation.

A typical facilitation training workshop lasts approximately ten hours, beginning the first evening with dinner and a conversation, continuing with conversations and feedback sessions during a second day, and concluding with breakfast and a wrap-up session on a third day. This timeframe easily can be adapted to meet an organization's needs.

Project trainers can prepare up to 24 facilitators to lead civic reflection conversations. These trainings can be tailored to specific themes and/or kinds of audiences. We can lead these on-site, or organizations can apply to send participants to one of our semi-annual trainings in the Chicago area (see below).

General and Customized Workshops

The Project hosts two types of facilitation training workshops: trainings for individuals interested in launching a conversation series in their organization or community; and trainings tailored to the needs of specific organizations or networks.

Trainings for individuals are held semi-annually in Chicago. These trainings draw from multiple organizations and sectors of civic life, and are open to the broader public. Registration information can be found at the top of this page and in our e-newsletter, Civic Reflection News Update.

The Project also offers customized, on-site workshops for specific groups or networks interested in integrating civic reflection into their programming. In these cases, Project staff will work with an organization or network to select relevant texts, and will design the workshop to meet their specific needs.

Benefits

Participants leave the training better equipped to lead reflective conversations in civic life. Specifically, participants leave with

• concrete facilitation skills—including basics such as what civic reflection facilitation is (What is the skill set of a good facilitator?) planning a conversation (How do you choose texts?), leading a conversation (How much talking should you do?), managing common challenges (How do you make sure everyone has a chance to speak?), and concluding and evaluating a conversation (How do you measure how effective you are?);
• a facilitation handbook with tips and answers to frequently asked questions;
• familiarity with a core set of texts—poems, essays and short stories—useful for exploring civic values and activity;
• a new network of colleagues engaged in this practice;
• connections to the Project's resources—including access to our staff for ongoing support during your conversation series.

A humanities council director who brought Project staff in to train facilitators for a state-wide initiative had this to say:

"Thank you for your skillful, gentle leadership of the facilitator training. I am astonished by how much ground we covered, including the ground that ultimately shifted at the end! Your structure allowed almost everyone to facilitate a small group, and the debriefings were very helpful. What a wonderful team you are."

Contact Us

Interested in attending a Civic Reflection Facilitation Training Workshop—or bringing one to your own community? Please contact us at (219) 464-6767 (Valparaiso, Indiana office), (312) 750-1760 (Chicago office) or at civic.reflection@valpo.edu.