Town Teams Facilitator Development Programme - Learning Laboratory 2

Historically, through the Partnership Skills Programme, Town Teams* had the opportunity of working with an external facilitator to develop their place. Access to an external facilitator through this programme will come to an end in March 2009 leaving a potential gap. The Learning Lab 2 project focussed on developing ‘home grown’ people, which had an interest in regeneration, with the skills needed to facilitate groups.

Development was centred on the use of facilitator led discussions and input, skills and knowledge development exercises and role-play, used to develop the participants’ knowledge and skills. Participants were encouraged to develop their delivery approach, their knowledge and skills, their confidence and a deeper understanding of the processes and dynamics of facilitating groups of people throughout the course of the programme.

Round table discussion

A booklet was produced with the client in mind as the audience. This provided the client with information on how, when and what they could use a facilitator for and the support needed to select the right facilitator for the job.

An event was also run to address the existing capacity of facilitators in the region and generate feedback on the support needed to develop this.

The Learning Laboratory was funded by the Academy for Sustainable Communities and managed by Integreat Yorkshire.

* Town Teams are groups of people who work with their community to identify and shape projects designed to transform the place where they live.