Community Facilitators

This course will enable people to involve others from their community in decision-making for and about their community. It builds on years of practice in community development work and engagement work in this country and overseas.

Participants will learn about the principles and process of good engagement work, find out how to include and empower people, develop facilitation skills and have the chance to try out lots of methods and tools. They’ll also work on a small, but real participatory project. Everyone will also receive a comprehensive manual which supports the course content.

The course is ideally suited to groups of people who are about to embark on a project in their local  community or community of interest. It can be delivered to suit your group and what you’re planning to achieve.

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes for a typical five-day course might include:

• Understanding
• the underpinning principles of empowering participatory work
• how to make participatory work inclusive
• how to ask questions that help people move forward
• how conflicts can arise – and have some tools for dealing with these
• Knowing about
• the project cycle
• different levels of participation – when and where each level is appropriate
• a variety of creative and visual tools for sharing information, generating solutions, prioritising, action planning and evaluating
• Developing
• listening, questioning and facilitation skills.

People who commissioned this course have said

“The course presents Participatory Appraisal simply but effectively and the process emerges as an exciting adventure in discovering precisely the needs and aspirations of our local communities.” Ann Smith, Sure Start Lightbowne & Harpurhey

“The course has been a great way to involve people who use learning disability services in sharing ideas. The trainers went to great efforts to ensure the training was suitable for a group of people with wide range of abilities and promoted collaborative and creative working amongst staff and service users” Ellen Sanford, Devon Partnership Trust

“The course provided a solid introduction to the ideas and benefits of PA, as well as providing lots of tools to help us do the job.  It was fun and interactive, and also challenged us to get over our fears of talking to potential participants.  A really useful, thought provoking and practical course.  I would highly recommend it to others looking for innovative ways to find out, record and take action on the views of a wide range of people, and facilitate positive change. Caroline Wild, Head of Patient, Carer, User and Public Involvement” NHS South of Tyne and Wear