Creative Facilitation: Tools for Healthy Conversations

What you'll do

Take part in a hands-on, one-day workshop where you’ll experience creative facilitation tools first-hand. Rather than simply hearing about techniques, you’ll try them out, reflect on how they work and explore how you could use them in your own practice. You’ll learn through practical activities, group discussions and sharing experiences with other participants.

Who it's for

Research and academic staff who want to develop their skills and confidence in facilitating conversations with the people and communities they work with.

Why attend

Build a practical toolkit of techniques you can use immediately to create more inclusive, engaging and purposeful conversations. Gain confidence through practising the approaches yourself, discover new ideas through learning with others, and leave with fresh perspectives to apply in your own work.

What we'll cover

• Check-ins: creating the conditions for people to participate and connect.
• Setting boundaries: supporting healthy, constructive conversations.
• Mapping: making ideas and perspectives visible so groups can think together.
• Focused Conversation: using a structured approach to explore topics in greater depth.
• Reflection: making time to draw out learning and consider how to apply it.

Throughout the day, you’ll experience each approach as a participant, consider what makes it effective and explore how to adapt it to different situations.

After this session, you'll be able to:

• Use practical creative facilitation tools in your research and public engagement work.
• Structure conversations to support participation, reflection and shared understanding.
• Create clearer boundaries and more thoughtful spaces for dialogue.
• Adapt facilitation techniques to a range of different situations.
• Draw on your own experience and the insights of others to develop your facilitation practice.

This session is facilitated by Dawn Williams