Facilitation Training Workshops

Civic Reflection Facilitation Training Workshops help participants learn how to facilitate civic reflection discussions, which use reflective reading and conversation to open up important questions or issues for the community.

Upcoming Trainings

Click the link below to download information and a registration form for our upcoming trainings:

General Trainings:

May 10-11, 2012: Chicago School of Professional Psychology
Registration deadline: April 20, 2012

• Register for one of our facilitation trainings

Workshops for Educators

February 10-11, 2012: Downtown Chicago
Registration deadline: January 15, 2012

See the Teachers' Inquiry Project page for more offerings.

• Register for an upcoming TIP workshop

What is the purpose of a Civic Reflection Training?

Project on Civic Reflection (PCR) Facilitation Trainings help participants learn how to facilitate civic reflection discussions. Civic reflection discussions use short, thought-provoking readings from literature, history, or philosophy to open up important questions in civic life and explore the underlying values and beliefs that drive our shared work in the world. They are relevant to anyone interested in deepening civic engagement, strengthening connection and commitment within communities, and promoting dialogue across differences.

Participants in our facilitation trainings regularly include nonprofit leaders, board members, and staff, volunteers, students, educators, program directors, and many more. We work with a wide variety of civic, volunteer, and service organizations, including national service programs like AmeriCorps and VISTA, libraries and cultural organizations, colleges and universities including service learning groups like Campus Compact, and state service commissions. A complete list of our clients and partners is available here.

How do these trainings work?

Led by PCR staff members who are nationally recognized experts in the art of humanities-based discussion, these trainings blend brief presentations, group discussion, and hands-on facilitation. Workshop participants include experienced facilitators as well as those new to civic reflection, allowing participants to learn from one another. Participants take turns leading discussions and receiving feedback, learn different types of questions to pose, and receive guidance on handling the responsibilities and challenges of facilitation.

What benefits do participants receive from the trainings?

Participants leave the workshop better equipped to lead reflective conversations in civic life. Specifically, participants leave with:

• Concrete facilitation skills—basics such as what civic reflection facilitation is, how to plan and lead a discussion, managing common challenges, and concluding and evaluating a conversation
• A facilitation handbook with guidelines, tips and answers to frequently asked questions
• A sample set of diverse texts useful for exploring civic values and activity
• A new network of colleagues engaged in this practice
• Connections to the PCR's resources—including access to our staff for ongoing support during your discussion series, as well as to our print publications and our online Resource Library and Facilitators' Forum
• Potential opportunities to facilitate discussions as a PCR associate.

General and customized trainings

PCR offers general trainings, which are open to the public, and customized trainings tailored to the needs of specific organizations or networks. We also offer an invitation-only Train-the-Trainer workshop for experienced facilitators to prepare them to lead civic reflection facilitation trainings. The general trainings are held 3-4 times a year in Chicago. These trainings draw from multiple organizations and sectors of civic life. Dates for upcoming trainings are announced on this page and in our newsletter.

PCR also offers customized trainings for specific groups or networks interested in integrating civic reflection into their programming. In these cases, PCR staff will work with an organization or network to select relevant texts and design the training to meet their specific needs. Examples include:

• Training AmeriCorps program directors to lead discussions with their members
• Training facilitators to lead community conversations for a state humanities council initiative on a specific topic, such as religion and civic life
• Training a group of high school teachers to lead discussions as part of their service-learning program
• Training librarians to lead discussion programs with volunteers and community members.

Comments from participants:

"I came away from the workshop with a much better sense of what civic reflection is, and what it is not; with some practice as a facilitator; great experiences as a participant; the opportunity of having watched several facilitators at work; and a toolkit full of tips and good practices that I can use."

"I found this workshop to be incredibly profound—the amount of 'nuts and bolts' information was extremely helpful. The structure is great—I really like flowing between large group discussion, large group instruction, to small groups and back again."

"Civic reflection is the perfect approach to discussing issues that matter to people engaged in civic activities—e.g., volunteers who need to examine their mission in life and in their work; leaders in community organizations that need to broaden their perspective as to their roles in the community; and prospective members of an organization who need insight on the issue of social responsibility."

Contact us

Interested in attending a Civic Reflection Facilitation Training Workshop—or bringing one to your own community? Please contact us at (312) 750-1760 (Chicago office), at (219) 464-6767 (Valparaiso, Indiana office), or at civic.reflection@valpo.edu.