The Ultimate Guide to Become a Great Facilitator

Content

Becoming a great facilitator is one of the key factors of your idea/project's success. Effective facilitation not only provides you methods and skills to plan and implement a dialogue activity (event, workshop, training, conference, online meeting, etc.) but also assists you in inspiring others around you, building your tribe and getting powerful partners and networks.     
﻿
Learn how to build an effective facilitation process to make visible the attitudes, interests and needs of youth, to strengthen your participation on all political levels, and to impact the political decision-making.  
﻿
Explore how to clarify your vision and mission, to which conditions you should pay attention and how to get in contact with relevant people. Study numerous methods for getting started, methods for exchanging opinions, experiences and ideas and methods for reflecting and moving forward. Understand what we consider to be useful in terms of caring for results and follow-ups.
﻿
Additional, the playlist 'The Ultimate Guide to Become a Great Facilitator' is a great opportunity to learn about the EU Youth Dialogue, which is the dialogue with young people and youth organisations involving policy and decision-makers, as well as experts, researchers and other relevant civil society actors. The dialogue aims to support continuous joint reflection and consultation on the priorities, implementation and follow-up of European cooperation in the field of youth. Furthermore, the playlist supports you to create an activity and run a youth dialogue on the topic of your interest (for instance, Mental health, Sustainability, Participation, Non-formal learning and Inclusion).
﻿
@The playlist 'The Ultimate Guide to Become a Great Facilitator' has been inspired and created on the basis of the 'Toolbox: Dialogue activities to implement the Youth Goals together' (Natalie Lehner and Martin Kitzberger, youth-goals.eu, © 2020 Youth Goals Lab). 

Activities to complete

Complete the following activities, earn badges and you will see your playlist progress updated

Your goals vs. Youth Goals: You are not alone!

Mandatory

45 minutes

View full activity

Content

Effective facilitation starts when you have a clear vision and mission you want to achieve. Let's have a short exercise to explore your vision and mission, study what are the Youth Goals and understand how your personal goals resonate with the Youth Goals. Lastly, but not least important, let's understand why is the facilitation of a dialogue activity important in relation to the Youth Goals? 
﻿
Ready? Let's start.
﻿
Step 1. Clarify your vision and mission (15 mins)
It is helpful to shape your vision and mission. It can be very helpful to write down your topic, your goals and expectations. It is important to stay flexible and ambitious, but also to keep them and your capacities in mind. Go through the following sections, think for a moment about each tip and write your thoughts down.  
﻿
Clarify your topic: 
The topic should interest you. Ask yourself why you want to work on this topic;
The topic should be relevant for you and your target groups;
Ideally, you already have previous experience with the topic;
When setting the topic frame, make sure that it is not too extensive. 
﻿
Clarify your goals:
What is the aim of the activity? 
What goals do you want to achieve with the activity?
Are there any milestones you need to reach in order to achieve your overall goal? 
﻿
Clarify your expectations:
What do you want to achieve with the results of your activity? Is a specific form of results required for this? 
What benefits does the activity bring to participants? 
What do you want to achieve as follow-ups?
﻿
Step 2. Study what are the Youth Goals (3 mins)
﻿The European Youth Goals are goals to achieve a youth-friendly Europe of the future. The effort of this process is to make the attitudes, interests and needs of European youth visible and to strengthen youth participation on all political levels. The EU Youth Dialogue operates at the European, national and regional level on the implementation of the Youth Goals to promote the interests of young people in politics. All EU Member States were involved in the development of the Youth Goals and continue to support them. The Youth Goals and the EU Youth Dialogue are a part of the EU Youth Strategy 2019–2027, which sets the direction of common youth policy throughout the EU.
﻿
Step 3. The 11 European Youth Goals (2 mins)
﻿The 11 European Youth Goals summarize the issues that affect young people in Europe and the political priorities that are important to them. The Youth Goals show in which areas change still has to happen so that young people in Europe can use their full potential.
﻿
Watch this The European Youth Goals short video to learn about each Youth Goals or visit the web page The Youth Goals. ﻿
﻿
Step 4. My goals vs Youth Goals (5 mins)
﻿The Youth Goals sound exciting, don’t they? In step 3 we looked closer at each of the European Youth Goals. Now, take the notes you took at Step1 and compare them to the Youth Goals. Let's find out what they have in common with your goals. Write down your thoughts: under what Youth Goals you would put your goals? How do your goals resonate with the Youth Goals?
﻿
Watch the European Youth Goals and the EU Youth Strategy playlist and meet amazing and inspiring young people like you to learn: 
What do they think about the European Youth Goals?
Which European Youth Goal is more relevant to them and why?  
How do they link the goal with what they do?
﻿
Step 5. Why is facilitation a dialogue activity important in relation to the Youth Goals? (15 mins)
Did you know that about 50 000 young people from all over Europe participated in the EU Youth Dialogue process in 2018 voted to set the 11 Youth Goals and their targets? And, your goals are, most probably, similar to one or several Youth Goals. So, what does this mean? 
It means you are not alone to achieve your goal, there are thousands of people who share similar goals as you. Let's not forget about the remaining people who do not know yet about your goals and would like to join your tribe.  
﻿
Now, think for a moment about why is facilitation a dialogue activity (workshop, training, open event, project presentation, online meeting, etc.) important in relation to the Youth Goals? Write down your thoughts.

Resources

Get activity badge

Visionary! Get this badge

The holder of this badge has been working on shaping his/her clear vision and mission he/she wants to achieve, on understanding how his/her personal goals resonate with the Youth Goals and why is facilitation a dialogue activity important in relation to the Youth Goals? 
﻿
This badge is part of the Youth Goals and the EU Youth Dialogue, which are a part of the EU Youth Strategy 2019–2027, which sets the direction of common youth policy throughout the EU. 
﻿
The holder of this badge has worked independently at awareness/understanding/action at the importance of the facilitation process as a step to developing facilitation skills and methods.
﻿
How the holder of this badge worked on these skills can be seen in the evidence in this badge. International youth workers have assessed the completed tasks.

You have to finish 1 task to get the badge

Tasks

Task no.1

Evidence verified by: one activity organiser

Share the notes you took during Step 1. Clarify your vision and mission. Share your topic, goals and expectations.
﻿

Task no.2

Evidence verified by: one activity organiser

Share the notes you took during Step 4. My goals vs Youth Goals 

Task no.3

Evidence verified by: one activity organiser

Share the notes you took during Step 5. Why is facilitation a dialogue activity important in relation to the Youth Goals? 

Time to Plan

Mandatory

1 hour

View full activity

Facilitation 101

Mandatory

30 minutes

View full activity

Methods for youth dialogue

Mandatory

1 hour 30 minutes

View full activity

Making sense of the results and follow up

Mandatory

30 minutes

View full activity

Skills

ESCO

#provide leadership

ESCO

#exert result-oriented leadership

ESCO

#personal development

#Global Youth Skill

ESCO

#lead others

ESCO

#communication

ESCO

#strategic planning

Activities: 5

Started: 6

Completed playlist: 0

Time to complete: 4 hours 15 minutes

Organisers

Network of Cities and Regions of Learning

Badgecraft hosts this platform and develops it together with leading educational organisations. The European Union's programme Erasmus+ granted co-funding for building the first version of this platform. Contact support@badgecraft.eu.