Facilitation
Supporting groups to achieve their goals
We facilitate groups through process-oriented events such as planning, decision-making, brainstorming, consultation or visioning meetings. To prepare for the event, we clarify the purpose with you about why you are meeting and where you want to get to, and then we craft an agenda to suit. We select processes and activities to include everyone in the room and help people find innovative solutions together. We are guides along the way, incorporating individual and group work to help your team or organization achieve your purpose – and keep everyone energized to get there!
Beth facilitated a strategic planning day for Mount St. Mary Hospital with approximately 20 people in attendance: staff, volunteers and other organizational stakeholders. She met with key individuals from the organization in advance of the session and planned an interactive agenda that would lead them to their goal, which was to gather opinions and ideas from the group to inform the creation of their next three-year strategic plan.
“Beth provided the perfect balance of structure and flexibility for our team retreat. It’s not easy to facilitate a group of facilitators and Beth engaged us in decisions and changes throughout the day to ensure we spent more time where we had good energy and were achieving results. She helped us make some quick agreements around things that would be completed outside of the session. Beth’s strong questioning skills helped us get clear on our goals for each part of the day. She was able to hold a bit of creative tension so we pushed through on some important conversations. I also appreciated Beth’s ability to synthesize our conversations into a clear summary.”
– Sarah Hood, Director, Organizational Development and Learning Services, Human Resources, University of Victoria –
Beth was hired by Open School BC to facilitate a two-day session with a group of high school teachers to plan curriculum changes related to BC’s work on righting Chinese Historical Wrongs. The event paved the way forward for the teachers and Open School BC to produce curriculum supplements for two different grade levels, and create an interactive web-based educational resource.
“I’ve had the very good fortune to work with Beth on several projects and I am always looking forward to more. Beth supported the Leadership Victoria core program committee by facilitating our one-day planning retreat. We had a huge, bold, challenging set of “hopes” for the day and Beth helped to design an agenda which was both realistic and productive. Our group was going through cultural change and Beth facilitated this with tact and kindness. She kept us optimistic when it felt like we were really in the wilderness, and by the end of the day we had a huge round of “thumbs-up” at our check-out.”
– Susan Low, Former Executive Director, Leadership Victoria –
Providence Health Care hired Beth to facilitate a one-day planning session with their Volunteer Services team during which they would create a workplan for the next year and brainstorm more strategic ideas for the following two years. Beth supported the team to engage in creative and practical visioning and come up with action items to help them meet their goals.
“Beth facilitated two staff engagement sessions in our office. Our groups worked through a number of different discussion formats from pairs to small groups to larger discussions. The process was very successful in giving everyone an opportunity to contribute and see their input reflected in the outcomes of the sessions. Beth also introduced us to innovative approaches to the traditional brainstorming model that generated very valuable insights into our organization.”
– Rob Sutherland, Director of Hansard Services, Legislative Assembly of B.C. –
