Facilitation

Constructive Communities offers a variety of facilitation approaches and works with all kinds of groups and organizations to determine processes that will best fit your needs. If you're interested in any form of group facilitation, please reach out and we'll design a process that's right for you. All facilitation begins with a introductory meeting or call about the group and context and is usually followed by participant interviews or pre-conferences before the actual facilitation. These may be one-time facilitations or an ongoing series.

Please visit the Contact page to inquire about availability and pricing.

Team Building

Team building is an opportunity for groups to build meaningful relationships and/or deepen existing ones. Whether this is in response to a recent challenge or simply to strengthen community, team-building facilitation creates a culture of collaboration and intimacy that helps groups feel more connected and work together more effectively. Team-building usually involves highly interactive activities and lots of opportunities for people to get to know each other and build trust.

Dialogue & difficult conversations

This facilitation approach allows groups to talk about challenging topics in a way that welcomes difference, honors individuals' unique experiences, and offers a framework and language for discussing hard subjects. This can also be a useful for diverse groups that want tools and support in finding common ground while also acknowledging their diversity and difference.

circle keeping

Peacemaking or restorative circles are a restorative practice based on traditional discussion and healing practices of indigenous peoples of the world. Circles allow participants equal space to speak through the use of a talking piece; help them heal, reflect, and share together; and balance the emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual parts of ourselves. There are many types of circles - below are some of the most popular, but please be in touch to discuss what format might work best for your group.

             Conflict/Responsive Circles:  This circle is ideal for situations of harm and includes relational work, addressing the root causes and effects of the harm done, and creating agreements to move forward and prevent the harm from re-occurring. This process involves 1:1 pre-conferences with participants and may include not only those most closely affected, but other impacted community members as well. Circles also include follow-up to monitor progress on agreements.

             Community-Building Circles: This circle allows groups to build stronger relationships, have meaningful conversation, and explore aspects of their community. This may include setting or refining community norms or agreements that will allow the group to move forward with greater trust, connection, and clarity.

             Reflection or Talking Circles: A reflection or talking circle centers around one or a few specific topics that are relevant to a particular group. The process includes relationship building and then moves to questions prompting honest and thoughtful conversation about those topics.

strategic planning

Strategic Planning helps organizations align around a shared mission and vision and develop goals to live that out. This process often involves grounding in group values, developing a collective vision for the future, and creating SMARTIE (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound, inclusive, equitable) goals through an emergent learning process. We also use an appreciative inquiry tool called the SOAR (strengths, opportunities, aspirations, results) assessment to understand what is working and where we want to grow. Other areas of focus can be incorporated into this facilitation, including clarifying roles and responsibilities, building collective decision-making practices, and scenario planning.

decision-Making

This facilitation helps groups come together to make tough decisions about issues relevant to their organization or community. We will work together on a process design that's appropriate for your group and will offer a structure and format to strategically explore the issues at hand and come to a decision or agreement for the future. This process may or may not use consensus decision-making, depending on the group and context.

design thinking

Looking to develop a new program or project? Design thinking is a five step process that allows teams to empathize with their users, define pain points and critical elements, prototype, and begin to test - sometimes all in one sitting! This tried-and-true method used around the globe helps teams quickly and skillfully get their ideas out in the world in order to prioritize time for testing, feedback, and refined iterations.