Facilitating Reform: Training Guide for Facilitators

Aims of the tool

This guide aims to organize, control and unify training operations and capacity-building processes among practitioners (trainers, facilitators, co-facilitators, assistant facilitators and documentarians) who work in the field using the same methodology. It also aims to provide training plans according to the target groups, as follows:

1. Unify the conceptual framework among practitioners and set the tone for training interventions.
2. Specify training operations; explain the conceptual framework and the rational and experiential goals for each session, providing different activities appropriate for each training session.
3. Document the practitioners' experiences according to this methodology.
4. Provide an ethical framework guiding the practitioners' work.
5. Provide a critical, analytical framework for behaviors, attitudes and motivations.

Description of the tool

The specific approach of this guide seeks to transform contradictions into shared resources, through a process of reflecting and re-framing the goals of organizations, groups and individuals in a creative way, responding to their specific needs and goals.

The guide contributes to identifying the nature of the target group, understanding power relations, identifying the level of gender representation, developing a specific focus and mapping different types of contradictions in regards to the focus, in order to move from antagonism to agonism. It also aids in understanding the cultural and structural dimensions of the contradictions as well as unconscious patterns in culture, social structure and collective behavior in order to transform assumptions, attitudes and behaviors.

The training manual regulates the different aspects of facilitation and training, with a specific focus on the training and facilitation team's relationship with the target groups.

In brief, it includes:

1. The Preparatory Phase
2. The Facilitation Team's Relation with Target Groups
3. The Training Journey
4. Re-entry, Sustained Support, Monitoring and Evaluation