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.     
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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.  
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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.
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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).
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@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

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Time to Plan

Mandatory

1 hour

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Facilitation 101

Mandatory

30 minutes

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Content

Becoming a great facilitator is a matter of practice. Understand the roles of a facilitator, learn the "basics of facilitation," explore what skills and attitude you must develop to master facilitation.     
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Close your eyes and remember a time when you were in an activity that was perfectly facilitated by someone else. What were the things you remember about the facilitator/facilitators? What did you like about the facilitator/facilitators? What skills did they have? What impressed you more about the facilitator/facilitators? 
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Now, recall a boring activity you ever had. What were the things you remember about the facilitator/facilitators? What didn't you like about the facilitator/facilitators? What skills do they miss? What else was wrong with the facilitation process (rude behaviour, interruptions, lack of materials, etc.)? 
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You already have an idea of what facilitation is. So, let's start to understand what are the roles of a facilitator? What about a quick quiz to check this out: Roles of a Facilitator. 
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Through the quiz, you got an idea regarding the roles of a facilitator. Next, we go through the "basics of facilitation" and what attitude you need to develop. Here we go what a facilitator needs to know:
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1. Create a good atmosphere
Make sure you are a good host and pay attention to all aspects of cooperation and the needs of your participants. 
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Before participants can bring new ideas into the world, it is necessary to take time to think about the topic and related questions. It is also important that participants establish their own relation to the topic. Reflecting and expressing one’s own experiences help to open oneself up to other experiences and possibly to other opinions. Allow a good mixture of telling and listening. 
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The dialogue activity should be a positive experience for everyone, therefore, an appreciative collaboration is necessary. In order to achieve this, it can be helpful to establish some rules, such as the following: 
Respect and listen—without judgment or interrupting but with the intention of understanding the other person better. 
Dialogue on an equal level and timely appropriate and relevant contributions—everyone should have the opportunity to speak and be heard. 
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As an organiser, what you decide to do or not to do can influence the atmosphere within the group. Therefore, it can be helpful to ask yourself a number of questions to reflect your role in the process. A self-reflection can help identify why something is working or not. 
Am I positive or negative towards the group? 
Do I look forward to the group work or not? 
How do I think that the participants perceive me? 
Am I distracted from the group work by something else? 
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Answering these questions can sometimes suggest that the original plan might need adaptation. For example, it may be sufficient to replace one method with another or to put a stronger focus on getting to know each other better before working on the content.
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2. Give your participants an overview
It is important to give an overview to participants and interested persons. Make sure that they know who you are, what you do and where you want to go with your activity. Make the different groups of participants, such as young people, decision-makers and representatives of youth organisations, and the common goal of the activity visible. Explain what scope your activity has and how they can get involved.
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3. Offer a wide range of opportunities for dialogue and participation
Whether your approach is top-down or bottom-up, the more opportunities for dialogue and participation you offer, the more people you can reach, and the more people will get involved. In order to achieve a wider reach, it can be useful to offer both online and offline formats. To promote long-term cooperation, it is important to offer the possibility for joining at any time of the activity. 
A number of methods will be presented in the next activity of the current playlist. The different methods can be used for working with a specific goal or with several goals at the same time. Due to the flexibility of the methods, they can be applied in different contexts and settings, such as conferences, project days or dialogue events. Some of the methods can also be used and adapted for online dialogue activities. 
When choosing a method, the objective of the activity, the composition of the group (number, age, and previous knowledge) and the preferences or experiences of the facilitator should be considered. The contents and methods should be chosen in such a way that participants from different situations and backgrounds can all contribute equally. To achieve this, it can be useful to ask about the participants’ wishes and expectations during the planning phase. 
Some methods can be used for direct dialogue between young people and political decision makers. As an alternative to panel discussions, dialogue activities offer the opportunity to communicate on a more direct and equal level. In this way, young people can experience politics and decision-makers can connect with young people. All participants benefit from the dialogue and together create youth-friendly policies.
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Get activity badge

Born to be a Facilitator! Get this badge

The holder of this badge has been working on his/her facilitation skills.
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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. 
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The holder of this badge has worked independently at awareness/understanding/action at the importance of the facilitation skills as a key success to implement an activity.
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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.
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You have to finish all tasks to get the badge

Tasks

Task no.1

Evidence verified by: one activity organiser

Describe your facilitation experience and share your tips and advice you think are important to become a great facilitator

Task no.2

Evidence verified by: one activity organiser

Describe what other support do you need in your path for facilitation?

Methods for youth dialogue

Mandatory

1 hour 30 minutes

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Making sense of the results and follow up

Mandatory

30 minutes

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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

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