Trauma-Informed Facilitation: Incorporating TI Practices in Group Conversations & Training

The role of a group facilitator is to ensure that group members are fully able to participate, interactions among participants go smoothly, and that the group achieves its intended goal. Sometimes as a facilitator, you have to discuss difficult topics as part of a workshop, training, or facilitated experience. Elements of a facilitated experience may not always go as planned, especially if the group is discussing a difficult topic or sharing personal stories or narratives. As a facilitator, you want to be prepared for any situation and create the best possible experience for participants in a group. 

This workshop will cover how to use trauma informed facilitation practices to plan, create and design. Using trauma informed principles of facilitation, we will cover the structure and format of facilitated experience, review how to create an agenda, design a facilitated experience, and how to handle disclosures, disruptions, and other facilitation challenges. This workshop is for facilitators and trainers who lead community-based conversations with adults where difficult topics may arise or in-depth discussions may occur. Participants in this workshop will learn how to better navigate situations that may arise with adult participants in a facilitated experience. Please come to this training thinking about specific gatherings, workshops, orientations or trainings where you want to integrate these approaches. 

This is not a 101 level course. If you are new to this content, we highly advise you take at least 1 of the following workshops prior to this the course: Instructional & Curriculum Design: Theory, Frameworks, Techniques & the "How To" of Implementation OR Train the Trainers OR Leading Collaborations & Coalitions for Greater Impact OR How to Design Online Curriculum for Adults: Micro-learning, Webinars, & Online Training. It is not required, although having participated in one of these workshops will give you greater context for the content in this training. For additional context, we recommend reading our in-depth blog post on trauma-informed facilitation: https://www.nonprofitlearninglab.org/post-1/understanding-trauma-informed-facilitation-community-conversations-as-nonprofit-leaders