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Facilitation - description and case study

Why: Critical meetings often fail to achieve their goals because groups have difficulty communicating well.  Another reason for meeting failure is a lack of expert facilitation that can free up key participants to focus on the substance of the discussion.

What: Facilitation is used any time a group needs to communicate effectively and to work together towards some common goals.  A third party helps create and maintain the space to make this happen.

How:  The facilitator consults on the agenda preparation, confirms the meeting logistics and ensures all participants are aware of and come prepared to the meeting.   At the meeting the facilitator helps ensure full participation, with effective communication and respect shown to all.  The facilitator also helps the meeting successfully problem solve, stay on schedule and agree to next steps.  Finally the facilitator creates and distributes minutes for the meeting that capture all important contributions and action items.

Case Study- Community Services Organization and Local Community

The Challenge: A Toronto social services agency wanted to improve dialogue with their community and increase involvement of the community in the goals and decision making of the agency.  There had been very little such communication in recent years and this had resulted in frustration in the community and a lack of volunteer participation.

The Response:  An initial meeting was organized and facilitated involving staff of the agency, board members and interested community members and volunteers.  This meeting revealed a great deal of frustration in the community and also resulted in some frustration among the staff and board.  However the facilitator kept everyone on track and ensured communication was respectful and that all comments and concerns were recorded.  Detailed minutes were made available to all participants.  A follow up meeting was held one month later.  At this session the facilitator continued to urge ownership of the meetings by all in attendance and helped them develop goals and groundrules for this and future sessions.  Also at this meeting the staff explained how they had listened and responded to concerns from the community expressed at the initial meeting.

The Results:  This challenging situation was moved forward to a point where regular facilitated meetings were being scheduled and the community was beginning to become more engaged and their ideas more integrated into the activities of the agency.  Challenges and a lot of work remain and they now have the regular space and process to deal with their issues and continue to improve relationship and cooperation.

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