Facilitation
I love working with groups to think together creatively and develop ways forward on knotty problems.
I draw on a range of facilitation methodologies, from arts-based and design thinking approaches to more traditional methods. I work closely with partners to design a process that participants will be comfortable with and feel fully able to contribute to- just because I ran a participatory arts charity doesn’t mean I’ll force people to do drama if they really don’t want to!
Some examples of my facilitation work include:
· Lead facilitator on Calderdale’s Citizen Jury on Retrofit. I worked with partners to co-design a series of in-person and online workshops for citizens. I brought in creative approaches such as interactive drawing, as well as more traditional expert witness sharing and deliberation sessions. The jury developed a comprehensive series of recommendations on overcoming barriers to home retrofit/ decarbonisation in the borough.
· Facilitated a workshop at a national Green Finance conference on overcoming barriers to home energy retrofit. I used personas based on real life experiences of diverse homeowners to encourage empathy and collaborative problem solving.
· Led the development of a process for partners on the "Participatory Futures" Global Challenges Research Fund project. This ethnographic research initiative investigated partners' perspectives across five international research projects. The process, which involved desk research, asynchronous collaboration and a hybrid workshop, enabled partners to reflect on the first phase of research and develop practical steps to connect academic findings with real-world applications.
· As Executive Director at ArtGlo in Malawi, I collaborated with team members to co-design and deliver a series of team retreats and strategy workshops using arts-based and participatory approaches.
Gus Alston, Chair- Victoria Hall