Facilitating and managing a group

Your behaviour as the group facilitator can either help or hinder how the group works together. This applies equally to face-to-face DAFNE courses as it does to Remote DAFNE courses.

This section is a reminder of basic group management techniques, and encourages you to consider how you will behave when you are facilitating and managing a face-to-face DAFNE course.

We all have different learning and teaching styles, which will be different in different situations or with different people. You may not feel comfortable using a group management approach that works well for a colleague.

Every DAFNE course is different because the participants are different; group management skills are important to ensure everyone gets the most out of the course.

Remember that the core of effective facilitation is to:

• be true to yourself; always be genuine and honest with course participants and try to establish rapport
• be willing to consider issues from the other person’s standpoint; try to understand how participants feel about the course
• accept participants for what they are in a non-critical and non-judgemental way; respect their experience and think positively about their ability.