Groupwork Centre’s 2-Day Facilitation Training Short Course: What you need to know.
We believe that facilitation is a core leadership skill anyone can master, regardless of their job title. Step inside our highly-rated 2-Day Facilitation Training Course to discover how we help teams harness group wisdom and navigate workplace dynamics with confidence.
Our November Facilitation Short Course participants
Facilitation is a foundational skill of great leadership. It enables leaders to build and sustain productive relationships, guide supportive meetings, and develop the self-awareness needed to lead authentically and in alignment with their values.
At Groupwork, we see everyone as a leader, no matter their title! We believe that when everyone on a team knows how to utilise good processes, it makes a profound difference in the experience, outcomes and overall potential of any collaborative work.
Established in 1984, Groupwork Centre has spent decades providing expert facilitation services and practical workplace training. We have helped hundreds of organisations – from the corporate and government sectors to not-for-profits and community groups – build collaborative cultures where people can truly thrive.
If you are looking to harness the wisdom of your team, develop inclusive leadership skills and navigate interpersonal challenges with confidence, our 2-Day Facilitation Training Short Course is the perfect place to start. Here is an inside look at what this comprehensive course covers and why it works.
A Facilitation Course Built on Experiential Learning
Our Model of Collaborative Practice is founded on two core principles: self-awareness and compassion.We believe that the best way to learn facilitation is to do it. Our approach is deeply experiential. We encourage participants to embody the training by having a go, feeling their responses, and practicing using their own real-world challenges. We teach simple, highly accessible processes that are continually refined alongside our clients to ensure they work in modern workplace environments.
Our facilitators, Sarah Norton (left) and Janet Rice (middle) with Keira (Ops Lead)
The Course Curriculum Breakdown
Our training strikes a careful balance between expert input from our facilitators, sharing the wisdom of the participants in the group, and a flexible focus on the specific learning needs of the people in the room.
Day One: Foundational Leadership and Facilitation Skills
The first day of the course focuses on the essential micro-skills of facilitation and understanding yourself within a group dynamic. We cover:
Essential Principles: The central values of facilitation, the true role of a facilitator, how to plan with flexibility, and creating a foundation to guide you when things go awry (they can do!).
The Role of the Facilitator: Having clarity around your own role and clarity for the group.
Micro-Skills: We believe effective facilitation is 20% good process and 80% good skills. You will practice essential leadership communication tools like naming and normalising, validating, and using our Hearable Messages model.
Understanding Ourselves: "First facilitate ourselves!" Using our Community of Selves™ model, you will map your self-awareness and build the emotional resilience needed to manage your reactions in challenging situations.
Building "Groupness": Learn how to spend the crucial first opening of any workshop building psychological safety, openness and trust all the way through.
Facilitation training in action! We gather in circle to practice the skills
Day Two: Working on Learning Needs
The second day builds on working on the learning needs of the group collected on day one, this ensures the training is applicable, practical and connected to real life challenges. We continuously tailor the training to the specific challenges of the participants. Key themes include:
Gathering Group Wisdom: Moving beyond the agenda to synthesise people’s ideas, encourage vibrant discussion, and work constructively with differences in rank and power.
Conflict Resolution & "Hot Spots": Conflict resolution is a vital leadership skill. We provide practical strategies to manage your own fears, navigate tense situations, and facilitate strongly held differences or challenging behaviors (like domination or aggression).
Custom Topics: Depending on the group's needs, this course may also dive into topics such as
Working with 'flat spots'
Creating engaged groups
Giving hearable messages
Facilitating strongly held differences
Bringing out what might be going on beneath the surface, when this is getting in the way of people’s learning
Challenging behaviour - domination, aggressive or needy behaviour, etc.
Skills to intervene in dynamics you find particularly challenging
Process Design
Role Theory as it applies to group dynamics
Collaborative decision making
Strategic Planning
Self-care and evaluation
Why a Two-Day Training Course?
We have been offering this specific facilitation course since 2004, and the feedback consistently highlights the massive benefit of the two-day format. We recently surveyed over 200 course participants, and they gave our training a 4.8 out of 5-star rating!
We received 4.8 out of 5 stars from our recent participants!
You can read some of the experiences here.
Because our approach emphasises emotional resilience and deep leadership development, integrating these lessons takes time. We consistently observe that something powerful happens "overnight" between the two days of training – the learnings sink in much deeper.
Furthermore, we commit 50% of our course time to active practice, sometimes with coaching and sometimes working out in small groups. The two-day format ensures you have the time to apply these new micro-skills and conflict resolution techniques to your own workplace scenarios, embedding them for life. Everyone gets a chance to practice these skills in a safe and supportive space!
Key Course Outcomes
So, what do we expect from our alumni when they finish our course? We are equipping participants who complete this facilitation training to leave with practical confidence and competence. You can expect to:
Possess a toolkit of reliable processes to enrich your leadership and facilitation practice.
Better understand your own emotional responses and manage them effectively during high-stakes meetings.
Have increased confidence in conflict resolution, tackling challenging behaviors, and "reading" the unspoken dynamics of a room.
Acquire a common language to share with your group/team around good meeting practices.
Understand the power of acting with compassion toward all participants – and yourself.
All in all, this training will be lively, highly participatory, and responsive to people’s needs… and even a bit of fun!
Setting the Scene for Success
We know that the learning environment matters. To maximise this training course, we ask that participants attend the full two days. We host our training in venues with natural lighting (like CERES for Melbourne-based day sessions or Commonground for multi-day retreats) to maintain energy levels.
The beautiful space at CERES Community Environment Park
You won't find traditional classroom tables here – we arrange our chairs in a "horseshoe" facing a blank wall to foster connection. No PPT in sight! Finally, we are providing catering in our training, as sharing meals helps deepen the trust built within the group.
The journey doesn't end when the two days are over. Once you complete the course, you become part of our vibrant alumni network. You will be invited to join our Facilitation Practice Circles (FPCs), which is an event where you can continue to hone your micro-skills and practice with fellow facilitators. You also gain exclusive access to the Groupwork Alumni Group, an active online community where past participants share resources, seek advice and stay connected with a network of like-minded leaders long after the training ends.
Ready to build a more collaborative culture? Find the next schedule for our course or reach out to our team to discuss bringing our Facilitation Training Short Course to your organisation.
