Professional Development Workshops for Sustainability Facilitators

Guide Beside Workshop Program
“Be a Guide Beside, Rather Than a Sage on Stage”

• Do you want to learn how to become better facilitators of sustainability learning and change?

• Do you want to become clearer about the importance of partnerships and collaborations, and ways to build these?

• Do you want to learn more about how to apply strategic planning to your programs?

• Do you want to understand what evaluation is really all about, and how to develop evaluation to meet the needs of your programs and your key stakeholders?

In 2009, as part of its professional development program, VAEE will again host four day-length Guide Beside workshops, based on six years of consultation and collaborative work with sustainability educators, facilitators & trainers across Victoria & Australia.

In these workshops, we will not be ‘telling you how to do it’, but rather working alongside you to help you develop a greater understanding and capacity to improve your personal skills in facilitation for sustainability and your overall program or project.
                                                

What is the Guide Beside About?
The Guide Beside program is an innovative professional development for facilitators of environmental sustainability.  The aim is to assist both experienced and not so experienced facilitators to acquire and further develop the best available learning-based change practices, program planning & evaluation.

We cannot learn, through conventional sit-and-listen training, how to facilitate collaborative transformative approaches for change – we need professional learning that itself is active and collaborative, and that involves making changes in ourselves.

From Participants of the 2007 & 2008 Facilitating Change Workshop:
“I expected to feel exhausted, but I was energised.  Reminded myself what change feels like.”
“We were all able to share experiences and examples, open to comment and encouragement.”
“Comforting, empowering, validating.”

Cost per workshop: NGO          (VAEE member)                         $150
NGO          (non-VAEE members)   $200
Corporate (VAEE members)           $200
Corporate (non-VAEE members     $250
[discounts available for booking four workshops]

If you want to know more, or want to register your interest, contact Bernadette Thomas at
VAEE on 9349 1806 or bthomas@vaee.vic.edu.au

• Balancing out transmissive and transformative approaches
• Learning and change for sustainability together (co-learning)
• Art of seamlessly shifting between processes and content
• Using appropriate collaborative and intentional leadership style
• Using best practice principles of learning and change (adult and child)
• Acknowledging and valuing the knowledge and skills of others
• Building on prior experiences and past achievements
• Using the most effective frameworks to help guide the process
• Applying passion and purpose to your work

• How do we tap into stakeholder perspectives, support and resources?
• Who are the potential stakeholders and other partners for my program?
• Benefits and pitfalls of partnerships
• The types of players in a project and how to engage each group
• Capacity building
• Ongoing cycles and levels of reflective planning involving stakeholders – How do I ensure that we revisit & review our project objectives in a dynamic way?
• Benefits of partnerships – What are some of the barriers in forming partnerships and strategies to overcome them?
• Maintaining and building relationships with partners – Collaborative Learning Teams and steering group

• What is effective planning? – Why do we need to plan?
• How much time do I have for planning? – integrating planning & other activities
• How can learning & behaviour change models can help inform the planning process?
• What model of learning & change best suits my particular project?
• What does an effective strategic plan look like?
• What tools can I use to develop a strategic plan?
• Building shared understanding and engagement by clarifying key objectives

• What is evaluation anyway? – What and why we need to evaluate
• Who is interested in evaluation outcomes? – stakeholder perspectives
• Evaluating from the start: integrating evaluation with planning and goal setting
• Let’s not overdo it! – What to put in, and what to leave out: setting priorities
• How much time do I have? – integrating evaluation & finding resources
• Linking evaluation to reporting outcomes: during the program and at the end
• Looking for and documenting the unexpected
• Making evaluation fun and relevant for everyone

Page last updated: December 2008