SYSF 1 information

REGISTER ONLINE	2010 Spring Class Schedule Choose from two different sessions, either Tuesdays or Thursdays

	Tuesdays 9am - 1pm	Thursdays 9am - 1pm*	Snow dates for all classes will be the preceding FRIDAY as follows
	Tuesdays 9am - 1pm	Thursdays 9am - 1pm*
	February 16	February 18	February 19
	February 23	February 25	February 26
	March 2	*March 4 (1-5pm)	March 5
	March 9	March 11	March 12
	March 16	March 16	March 26

Facilitation skills are not routinely learned and practiced. If you have ever been in a role that you wished you

had more skills or practice for, then Strengthening Your Facilitation Skills, Level 1 is for you.

Fun, creative and thought provoking, the SYFS, Level 1 Curriculum is a dynamic and comprehensive five-Lesson facilitation Training Series full of activities, “lecturettes” and potential aha! moments.

As a team member or chair, we are expected to produce results in collaboration with others. This is not always easy, and the skills of facilitation are not routinely learned or practiced to be effective in our work.

What is facilitation? It is the design and management of structures and processes that help a group do its work and minimize the common problems people have working together.

Facilitation is therefore a neutral process (with respect to the content and participants) that may focus on:

Training Objectives
The objectives for the SYFS, Level 1 Training Series are for participants to

Day 1: The Basics

Facilitating successfully means that the meeting tasks get balanced with relationship building

Facilitating successfully means that
the meeting tasks get balanced
with relationship building.

Intro to facilitation

An introduction to facilitation includes how to create an environment so everyone can participate meaningfully.

An introduction to facilitation

Core values of facilitation

Working agreements

Contracting

Thinking & learning styles

Decision making options

Day 2: Facilitating for Success

Role of working agreements

Stages of group development

Core facilitation beliefs and practices

Behaviors that hinder and help groups

Balancing relationships and tasks

Developing a meeting design

Day 3: Facilitating in Action

Achieving desired outcomes

Generating, narrowing ideas and action planning

Identifying core facilitation practices

Recognizing and redirecting difficult group situations

Assessing facilitation strengths and weaknesses

Day 4: Facilitation Challenges & Opportunities

Implications of assigned work for groups

Using the Left-Hand Column

Making interventions using The Diagnosis-Intervention Cycle

Day 5: Facilitating in the Wider World

During the training,
participants list questions they would like to have answered
by the end of the series.
In the last session, they work in small groups
and are able to develop answers to the group’s questions. Learn what participants have been asking –
and are able to answer at the end of the series.

More decision making options

Clarifying Circle consulting method

When to use outside facilitators

Resources

Time donation contracting and evaluation

Celebration

Foundations

The SYFS, Level 1 Training Series is based on foundational facilitator competencies developed by the International Association of Facilitators. The majority of the training focuses in three competency areas

Creating an environment of participation
Guiding the group process and
Encouraging creative thinking

The framework within which the SYFS, Level 1 Curriculum was developed models
Best Facilitation Practices. The overall format of the Curriculum embraces a solid adult education model where learning unfolds progressively, sequentially and experientially. The Curriculum allows for this to happen in the course of the each Lesson and, more complexly, continuing through several weeks of learning before the Training Series
is complete.

Meet the Presenter:

The Strengthening Your Facilitation Skills (SYFS), Level 1 Training Series was initially developed in 2001 by Extension Professionals Jane Haskell and Louise Franck Cyr.

Beginning in 2006, Haskell and Franck Cyr along with Gabe McPhail, developed the SYFS Training Series into the National Curriculum, Strengthening Your Facilitation Skills, Level 1.

Haskell will facilitate Strengthening Your Facilitation Skills Level 1.

Jane Haskell

Extension Educator
University of Maine Cooperative Extension

Jane brings over 20 years of experience in the design and implementation of experiential community development programs for youth and adults. Over the years she has launched several innovative Extension programs, from Voices, a school-based enrichment program for teens, to the Mid-Coast Home-Based Business Conference, the first statewide conference for home-based business owners in Maine, to producing and hosting Doing Business, a live, public affairs radio show. As a result of her community facilitation work, her latest innovation is the collaborative creation of Strengthening Your Facilitation Skills, Levels 1 and 2. The Training Series is designed to help local citizens as well as professional staff learn how to get work done more effectively and efficiently in group meetings. Strengthening Your Facilitation Skills, Level 1 has been used to train scores of volunteers and staff from over 30 organizations in Maine, and is now being used to train new Extension staff as well as citizens in other states. It has been identified as a curriculum by the National 4-H Learning Priorities to Build Effective Organizational Systems. Jane is working collaboratively to research the societal impact of having skilled community facilitators. She is a member of the International Association of Facilitators and the National Association of Community Development Extension Professionals.

Participants have said:

“I invest more time in preparation and to better identify those people with personal agendas.”
“I have more confidence in my facilitation skills.”
“I liked being with others . . . who are fun and inspiring and having specific ideas to put into place and a time to practice.”
“ I learned how to clarify assumptions, listen and then ask the right questions.”
“The training offered me tools I was oblivious to before and gave me creative ways to work with tools I already had.”

For more information, email jhaskell@umext.maine.edu or call UMaine Extension in Waldo County at 1-800-287-1426

Putting knowledge to work with the people of Maine

A Member of the University of Maine System
Last Modified: 11/19/09
These pages are currently being maintained from the
Waldo County Office, University of Maine Cooperative Extension.
Send comments, suggestions or inquiries to santunes@umext.maine.edu

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