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Preparing yourself to be a group facilitator

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Making Participants Feel Welcome
Hospitality and welcome go far beyond a simple greeting. Besides the attention to detail given to preparing the learning space and creating a good environment, a good facilitator can engage participants by name and motivate them to participate by creating a warm learning environment. During the first gatherings name tags are useful, not only to impart to the members of the group a sense of belonging but also to allow them the freedom of communicating with others whom they may not know well or whom they know in a different setting. As the participants begin to address each other by name, the importance of each participant is implicitly affirmed, as well as their presence and their contribution to the group. The facilitator may invite each catechist or teacher to tell the group more about themselves than their name. For example, they might each express what their ministry means to them. Appropriate sharing of life experiences fosters a culture of mutual trust and respect that is vital to the adult learning experience.

Group life
As the group begins its life together, the members usually develop informal but realistic norms or guidelines to follow during the sessions. These norms or patterns tend to help the members work well together and to focus on the purpose of the meeting. However, at times patterns begin to unfold which disrupt the functioning of the group and its purpose. For example, certain members might gather together frequently during a break, to the exclusion of others, or participants may tend to go into too much personal detail when sharing their experiences. The facilitator will want to carefully guide the catechists and teachers in forming healthy patterns for the group’s life and work.

At the beginning of each new year of formation, the facilitator should briefly review each component of Into the Fields and decide where and how it fits into the learning path of the program. He or she can then answer any general questions the learners might have.