Assessment of Facilitator Training

The off-season training completed in preparation for the 2022 season followed the format of those presented for the 2019 season. We had a total of 82 people who participated in the training. We edited the Manual and prepared new training materials for 2022. Facilitators reported that the materials used in training had substantial influence on their growth and skill level in leading the dialogues. It is apparent that there is a strong need to continue to train new facilitators by offering an introductory online class. Therefore, we will repeat this level of training for people who want to join in for the first time or get a refresher.

There is also an opportunity to create a Level 2 online class for those facilitators who have completed the basic class and have had the first hand experience of facilitating dialogues at Chautauqua. Envisioned as a more inter-active experience the Level 2 class will address honing skills and discussing how to engage in the “real life” challenges of active facilitation.

Hal Simmons of our leadership team has designed an application form for all new facilitators. We learned in 2022 that we just didn’t know enough about the new people coming in and didn’t have the time to get to know them before making assignments.

Because of the remote nature of our engagement with new facilitators we have learned that we cannot rely on any assumptions about their skill level. We therefore plan to assign all new facilitators to the Observer status to start with, followed by cofacilitating for the number of session necessary based on personal assessments. Thereafter they will be designated as a Facilitator or released from the program. From our pool of experienced facilitators we plan to select people we will designate Senior Facilitator and use this group more for training and auditing.

We recognize the importance of presenting a consistent product, one that follows the Facilitators Manual. The only way to ensure consistency and quality is to audit the performance of our facilitators. To this end we intend to make this part of our program

more robust in 2023. Senior Facilitators will devote more time to observing dialogues and meeting with facilitators to conduct evaluations.

We will also provide better tools for our facilitators. In reviewing the note taking from 2022 it is evident that our attendance sheet is not the useful tool it should be for facilitators to take the kind of notes they need to facilitate the conversations. Notes are an important part of not only starting the conversation but knowing where to take it and we will aim will to provide a more sensible road map to accomplish great dialogues.

Race Competency Training For All Facilitators

One of our objectives for 2020 (which became 2023) was to find a way to incorporate race competency training for all facilitators. In 2022 many of our facilitators attended the training offered by Amit Taneja.

Perhaps it was the content of the programming and themes of the Institution, perhaps the emergence of the African American Heritage House, or both, that made race a common issue participants wanted to discuss in the Dialogues during the 2019 season and again in 2022. Our awareness may also be tied to the fact that the dialogues at the AAHH were coupled to the sponsored lecture which specifically addressed race each week. In any event, it cannot be denied that race was and most likely will be an issue to be discussed in the Dialogues which mandates that the facilitators gain a level of race competency. To this end, we expect to work with Amit Taneja to incorporate this training into our spring schedule.

Our weekly lunch kickoff meeting for facilitators proved invaluable and we would like to continue them. In fact we believe them to be so important that we think they should be mandatory. They became an important part of sharing, training and camaraderie. If we adopt having noontime dialogues every day the Monday Facilitator lunch would most likely start no later than noon sharp.