Scottish Government

"Using a team of five facilitators drawn from the main agencies involved was very effective for a number of reasons:

• it visibly reinforced the multi-agency nature of the work

• it ensured a broader understanding of how best to design and facilitate the event

• it provided an opportunity for a variation in styles during the two days which it was hoped would address the variation in learning styles among the participants

• it provided a learning opportunity for the facilitators

• it shared the load of managing a large group where clear outcomes were required."

"We wanted all participants to be involved in mapping a particular aspect of Older Peoples' Services in the local area to build a shared understanding of the current system and of where the gaps in services exist. We planned to do this in small, mixed groups involving all participants including the Carers.

Whilst, as a facilitator, I am familiar with process mapping I do not feel sufficiently skilled in the techniques to facilitate a group. Some of our facilitators use these techniques all the time in their own organisation. The way we compensated as a team of facilitators was, firstly, the skilled facilitators briefed the others on the techniques, then the session was led by the skilled team and those of us that are less versed in process mapping acted as process facilitators, whilst the others provided any expert facilitation that was needed.

This worked really well, the groups got a lot out of the session and began to better understand each other's issues and the boundaries that exist, and the facilitators developed skills we didn't previously have. I feel that I could now lead a session using this technique."

"We thought that, as we were all facilitators in our own organisations, we wouldn't find any difficulty in quickly working together. Instead the opposite proved to be the case - although we shared some common language about facilitation skills, we also had some major differences because we used different techniques and approaches and have adopted the language of hospitals or social services.

I was amazed at the prejudices we brought and how we each stereotyped the other care agencies. I thought the social workers could act almost autonomously and they would be very 'laid-back'. I almost had the image in my head of the 'open-toed sandals' social worker. Instead I found they were very business-like, probably more than many people I work with in the hospital. And I was surprised at the constraints they have in decision-making, it seemed to be very hierarchical and slow. On the other hand, they thought we would be very bureaucratic and were surprised at the amount the staff and we are empowered.

We spent quite a lot of time overcoming our own stereotypes, prejudices and biases before we could really work effectively as a team designing a development intervention to build partnership across our organisations!"

"My reflections on being a member of the multi-agency facilitator team included:

• Did we provide ourselves with enough time as a group to review the process, our own perceptions about what was happening and to discuss different perceptions we may have had?

• Did we have a shared model for how change can be effectively managed?

• Although the facilitator group did spend a lot of time together, it may have been helpful to spend even more time 'storming and norming."¹⁷

"Coming from the Health Service I had no experience of working with the police and had no real feel for their approach to such a sensitive issue as drugs and alcohol. We had a room full of about 80 people representing almost the full spectrum of agencies involved in delivering a local service to drug and alcohol Users, including the Users themselves.

I would say that the police were arguably the most democratic and focused group there.You couldn't tell by the way their discussions went and the way they behaved to each other who was the Assistant Chief Constable and who was a police officer. They were all very approachable and willing to learn from the experience.

They appeared to be the fastest to capture the learning and attempt to change the way they worked and their behaviours during the course of the workshop.They were certainly the first to try to truly involve the Users in planning services and decision-making.

One important lesson we all got from the two days was to recognise how we apply stereotypes and carry prejudices."

"The OD practitioner, who was external to our agency, arranged to interview key individuals within our organisation prior to designing a workshop event. Some interviews were carried out face-to-face, some were completed by telephone.

This allowed the facilitation team to uncover the issues and concerns that people had about inter-agency working, that they would be unlikely to express in any other forum.

The internal facilitator team had questioned whether they should be conducting these interviews. It was decided that it was better for the 'external' to take this role, as they would be seen as objective and independent by the interviewees.

There is a history of good inter-agency relationships and working within the area, but the facilitator, who was not a part of our organisation, uncovered barriers to extending this good practice and developing

"In one pilot site the facilitator team of five people was drawn from the internal teams in both the Primary Care Trust and Social Work.

The whole team was involved in designing and running a two-day workshop event for invited participants from all the local health and care agencies, and provided follow-up support to the senior managers responsible for actioning the changes agreed at the workshop.

Initially the PCT Director was not convinced of the benefits of adding other facilitators to the internal team.They had been very successful at facilitating and implementing local service improvements themselves and questioned the added value of the wider team.

Halfway through the project the PCT Director actively promoted the benefits of the partnership of internal and external facilitation and was planning to continue that model in the future.The perceived benefits were that the wider facilitator team:

• helped to build a bridge that enabled facilitators from different organisations, working with very different models and styles of facilitation, to identify a common and shared approach to designing and running this intervention

• helped the internal team to further develop their skills working in a new way with groups, different from the approaches they had previously used in other local change projects

• brought a new perspective to local experiences to help the internal steering group find new ways of tackling old issues."

"I found that the way in which I facilitated the workshop activity varied dependent on the dynamics and needs of the groups and of individuals. Over the two days I worked with one group who knew and understood the issues but found that they were having difficulty in moving their discussions on, partly because there was one dominant member within the group who thought he had all the answers and wouldn't allow others to contribute. I acted purely as a process facilitator and helped the whole group to find a way of working that they sustained throughout the two days.

On another occasion I realised that a group were missing out on some basic information about the Joint Futures Group recommendations on Single Assessment. I was able to steer them by supplying them with essential documents and helping them to make contact with somebody else in the room that I knew had been working on local implementation of the Joint Futures work.

During the second day of the workshop event I could see that one of the participants was feeling very uncomfortable about the direction that the discussion was taking. The consensus within the room was to look at how skills might be shared across professions to enable the implementation of single assessment processes. This individual felt personally threatened by this proposal 'I feel they are trying to de-skill me'. From her body language I picked up the signals that all was not well, took her to the side and talked through the issue with her and helped her to form a strategy to cope with this anxiety and feed her feelings into the discussions. She recognised that she was probably not alone in feeling this way, although she appeared to be the only person expressing her anxieties."

"I cannot overemphasise the need to be able to be flexible. As much as you plan beforehand and think through every possibility that may happen during the workshop there are always surprises - these may be very pleasant or something may surface that you just hadn't anticipated.

Meeting the participants beforehand helps you to anticipate where problems may arise within groups or between individuals, but I have always found on these sorts of events with so many people and so many issues around - something crops up that I hadn't expected, and you need to be ready to deal with it without the luxury of time to plan what to do.

Sometimes, it's just that a group moves on through the difficult issues faster than you thought they would and you have to speed up the programme to keep their momentum going. Often groups try and avoid the really difficult barriers to change and you have to introduce something else into the programme to encourage them to address the very issue they are trying to avoid.

On a two-day event, the end of day 1 can seem to be very chaotic, because all sorts of dynamics are going on, you need to be able to make sense of that chaos and facilitate the process on day 2 to help the group make sense of it and find a way through it to agreement and action.That's when the support and skills of the other facilitators becomes invaluable - two heads are greater than one! - what can seem a difficult process to manage for one facilitator, can be more easily put into perspective when you talk it through with your colleagues!"

The Planning Dimension. This is the goal-oriented, ends and means, aspect of facilitation. It is to do with the aims of the group, and what programme it should undertake to fulfil them.

The Meaning Dimension. This is the cognitive aspect of facilitation. It is to do with participants' understanding of what is going on, with their making sense of experience, and with their reason for doing things and reacting to things.

The Confronting Dimension. This is the challenge aspect of facilitation. It is to do with raising consciousness about the group's resistance to, and avoidance of, things it needs to face and deal with.

The Feeling Dimension. This is the sensitive aspect of facilitation. It is to do with the management of feeling and emotion within the group.

The Structuring Dimension. This is the formal aspect of facilitation. It is to do with methods of learning, with what sort of form is given to learning within the group, with how is it to be shaped.

The Valuing Dimension. This is the integrity aspect of facilitation. It is to do with creating a supportive climate which honours and celebrates the personhood of group members; a climate in which they can be genuine, empowered, disclosing their reality as it is, keeping in touch with their true needs and interests.

The six dimensions interweave and overlap, being mutually supportive of each other. They need to be distinguished from each other in thought and action to achieve effective facilitation.

Drawn from Heron J (1999) The Complete Facilitators Handbook Kogan Page pp. 6-7

"Each facilitator was allocated to work with one of the Partner Agencies during the two-day event. Their role was to:

• Observe during the simulation event, recording behavioirs and identifying on whom and how these impacted

• Lead feedback sessions with their Partner Agency at the end of each day.

• Clarify aspects of the process and to help participants reflect on progress during the Simulation event."