Page 38 - BigConversationsDismantlingRacism

Facilitator Training

Since our lead facilitators had previously trained a number of our community mediators and
others in facilitation, they had materials prepared to provide an overview of our process for
our planning committee members. Two hours was not going to be enough to make them
experts, but it would make them aware of the concepts and allow them to practice the basic
skill of reflection – picking up on things that participants shared that were important and/or
conveyed emotion.

Steps Action(s)
Gather Training See attachments (4) Facilitation Workshop Agenda; (5)
Materials Challenging Situations; (6) Actions to Support Conversation;
(7) Items that Shut Down Conversation.
Schedule Workshop It’s always a challenge to get busy volunteers to dedicate
additional time to training. In our case we were able to schedule
at the same time and place as our regular planning committee
meetings, so this made finding an acceptable day and date that
much easier.
Train Augmenter It would have been a good idea to bring these fill-in facilitators in
Facilitators for a training workshop before the event. But we didn’t do it.
Basically, it was just too difficult to get them together at a
convenient time and place to have the training. We had
experience with all of them during previous programs or other
community events and had some confidence that they had the
communication skills and personality to co-mediate with one of
our trained facilitators or to fill in solo if required. This turned
out, for the most part to be true. We did get feedback that a
couple of them were more directive than we would have liked,
trying to lead the small group to their desired outcome rather than
following the group and supporting their conversation wherever
they needed to go.

Facilitator Guides

While our facilitators were anxious to help with these important community conversations,
they didn’t have the benefit of background from months of work with the planning
committee. It was necessary to provide them detailed information on the program and
expectations for them that could be readily assimilated. The Rhoades had developed a
Facilitator Guide based upon materials from the Defying Definitions program several years
before in partnership with the Maryland Commission on Civil Rights (MCCR) and the
Maryland Humanities Commission (MHC).

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