facilitation

"Our team away day was a creative, very focused and enjoyable experience which was very well structured and facilitated by Helen. It was a really valuable use of the limited time we had and the team was left with an action plan that they feel very motivated to carry through. The graphic record that Helen created during the process felt like a real celebration of our team and its achievements."
- Sue Broussine, Head of Section of Social Care, Stevenson College Edinburgh

Helen is a skilled facilitator with a great deal of experience of working with groups and teams to help them to plan, make decisions, reach consensus and to discuss difficulties and issues.

Helen employs a number of proven frameworks to promote effective group working, such as person centred planning tools like Map and PATH (developed by Marsha Forest, Jack Pearpoint and John O'Brien), mediation models, as well as many of her own tools and techniques that she has developed over the years. Her ability to 'think on her feet' makes her invaluable in meeting situations.

Helen regularly facilitates sessions with teams and groups for:

• Team building days
• Strategic planning exercises
• Reflective learning days
• Person centred planning with individuals
• Practice learning networks

"Helen is very welcoming, very easy to work with and is very encouraging and supportive."
- Team Leader

"I feel I will be able to take back the knowledge that we are working towards the same goals."
- Frontline staff member

Person Centred Planning

Person centred planning with individuals is where Helen's work as a facilitator began. She still undertakes this sort of work with individuals and families who wish to plan for positive, inclusive futures.

Using person centred planning tools,comlined with techniques from executive and life coaching, Helen works one-to-one with people who wish to plan for the future.  This might be any kind of goal, career or life planning.

"My MAP really helped me to figure out where I wanted to go with my future career.  What was most helpful was being able to see how my skills had grown over the years and to see that there had been a logical journey to my career path (even though it didn't always feel like that at the time!) - and this helped me to identify what I wanted to do in the future.  The way Helen listened to me and helped to clarify my thoughts was really beneficial. I felt very positive at the end of the process, went away with lots of food for thought, new ideas and a boost to my confidence - and having a beautiful graphic of my MAP to take away with me was great. Three weeks later I was successful in getting another job!"

- Joanne, Midlothian

"It was incredibly helpful to spend some time looking at what I have achieved over the years I have been employed. It has helped bring some clarity around why I made some of the key decisions throughout my career which in turn has highlighted what is really important to me in a job.  Looking back and sharing the story with you helped me to rediscover some of my gifts and has definitely boosted my confidence. The whole process has been really worthwhile and my PATH will be incredibly useful when applying for jobs and preparing for interviews… it’s cram packed with reasons to employ me!"

- Claire, Glasgow

For more information about person centred planning tools and training in how to use them, please visit our training pages.

Graphic Facilitation

Graphic recording is a key part of Helen's facilitation style. (See section on Graphic Recording and Facilitation.)