There's nothing more challenging than being in a class or group session where one or two participants seem to absorb all the facilitator's time and attention.
Often, we forget about the little things that contribute to an atmosphere of wellness in our classrooms, coaching sessions, groups, and interactions.
Today, I worked with a group of facilitators from various fields who are training to become Wellness Facilitators, trained to provide the WIS@work framework with organizations, groups, and individual employees.
This course is called Facilitating Wellness Conversations in Groups and explored ways to address interruptions and answer questions in your group to maintain an atmosphere of well-being. This is important no matter the size or topic or your group process, but more importantly in wellness conversations and teaching sessions.
Facilitating wellness conversation requires skill and tact to create and maintain an atmosphere of well-being at all times.
I had several learners who are themselves experienced facilitators remark that this course was beneficial, so I’m sharing some of these tips from one of the points covered in the course here for your use:
Five Tips to Maintain Safety in Your Group Process:
- Create a safe place for your group: This is especially important to reduce stress and anxiety in the group.
- Honour the spirit of each member: Acknowledge your learners and make them feel heard or encourage them to share their thoughts with you.
- Confidentiality: Help members agree to confidentiality, so people feel safe to share their ideas without it becoming gossip.
- Create group control agreement: Develop an agreement to manage those who over share and how to encourage others to share
- Reframe negative comments: This allows you to maintain positive energy in the group and prevent it from becoming unpleasant for others
As you build your career in wellness teaching, coaching, or facilitation, remember that you will need to create a positive atmosphere. Learning works with our biology, and we must feel safe for the transfer of learning to occur.
The Wellness Facilitator program trains professionals, consultants, coaches, and others to expand from one on one to group facilitation with a teachable framework, so they can increase their skills, reach more people, and expand their impact in the field of health and wellness. It is also a fantastic way to increase one’s income and gain more opportunities to work with organizations and groups in the rapidly growing field of health and wellness.
You can view how we are working to expand the competencies for learning to enhance wellness in workplaces and life by checking out the Wellness Facilitator Program training here
I forgot to mention that all our courses are standalone so yes, you can take this course as a standalone course here
To Your Wellness,
Joyce
