Getting the best out of small groups – a facilitation skills course to help you to allow small groups to survive and thrive in the NHS – Session 2

The Primary Care Academy (South West) would like to invite you to attend the regional educational facilitation skills course for primary and community care educators:

“Getting the best out of small groups – a facilitation skills course to help you to allow small groups to survive and thrive in the NHS”

 This is a multi-professional facilitation skills course for those new or relatively new to small group facilitation in primary care/community care. It will help delegates learn a bit about adult education theory in groups, presentation skills, ways to facilitate groups, and what things work. It aims to provide some knowledge and skills and tips that make small group facilitation look easy despite the problems that inevitably surface from time to time.  Though there will be some theory highlighted it is not designed to help you to write a good academic essay but to be able to practically manage a small group in an effective way.

Feedback from previous delegates has suggested:

“Great practical skills course”

“Learnt so much quickly about online and face to face group learning”

“Feel so much more confident now – lots of tips and tricks that I’ve seen good facilitators used and never quite spotted why they did it”

“Beginning of a journey but feel I have a map and a toolbox now”

“More confident presenting than I’ve been before and learnt so much”

Course facilitators:

Jill Wilson, Rebecca Matthews, Sian Williams, Stephanie Jackson and Steve Holmes have lots of experience facilitating groups in a variety of health care settings and have strong links to the Training Hub regionally and NHS England Southwest.

Who is the course suitable for?

Clinicians facilitating or leading small groups in a primary care / community care setting. Although the course is designed mainly for educational groups many of the skills are transferable to a small team leadership / facilitation role which is not necessarily educational. It will be suitable for groups that are undergraduate, postgraduate, multiprofessional or uniprofessional. It will cover both one-off group facilitation and groups that meet over a period. It will cover some of the skills and tips that can be used in both online and face to face learning.

The course is to help to enhance those with less experience of small group facilitation to develop confidence, skills and tips – but is not designed as a refresher course for experienced group facilitators, nor is it designed for those wanting to learn about 1-1 supervisor / teaching skills.

Aims

To enable a primary / community care clinician to have learnt a foundation and basis for facilitating online and face to face small groups moving forwards.

To increase the knowledge, skills and positive attitudes of primary care educators in group facilitation.

To develop skills in facilitating small groups in an experiential manner.

To enhance the ability of educators to plan and deliver structured educational sessions.

To improve the facilitation and management of larger groups.

Objectives

To understand the value of small groups (and size of small groups)

To understand the principles of adult small group education theory (methods for learning in adults and in groups)

To be able to identify some behaviours in a small group setting that disrupt and enhance group performance and the reasons potentially behind this.

To be aware and have strategies for managing unconscious bias and potential discrimination

To be able to use on line learning techniques to encourage learners engagement.

To be aware of a variety of ice breakers / energisers and when they may be useful (or less useful) on line and face to face.

To develop skills in facilitating and presenting in small groups environments, including to break up a small group to change dynamics and facilitate learning, presentation skills and ways to manage larger groups.

(Time permitting) To practice and develop skills in delivering educational sessions as well as recognising “in action” characteristics of a successful small group educational session.

Please email the PCA Team if you have any queries:  england.primarycareacademy.sw@nhs.net

Kind regards

PCA Team