Author: mariemartin1956

Cofacilitation can take different forms. Here are tables comparing: * different ways of co-facilitating * facilitation, mediation, teaching and leading * facilitation and co-facilitation * ways of working with others * personal relationships * co-facilitation as facilitation, as a way of working together, as a personal relationship and as a professional relationship * differing ways of sharing responsibilities * co-facilitation using analogies

Even 30 years ago there was a lot of literature to draw from in exploring co-facilitation! Here is a list of the texts I referred to in my research. And I welcome you to contact me? I have structured a range of training events to develop co-facilitation skills – from 2 to 10 hours!

Is co-facilitation worth doing? Co-facilitation is a way of working with a group. Just as ‘facilitation’ is supposed to ‘make things easy for a group’, novice co-facilitators believe that co-facilitation will be easier for the facilitators. The difficulty is that this is belief not reality; co-facilitation is not easier. The research participants in my study clearly articulated the ‘dark side’ of co-facilitation and yet most of them recommended co-facilitation as a way of working with a group, whether it be “in the right time and place” or recognising that “not all situations need co-facilitation but most would benefit from it”.

In exploring how co-facilitators facilitate, collaborate, exist in an expanding relationship and manage the unpredictability of co-facilitation, seven underlying structures emerge, ‘things that co-facilitation cannot be without’. They do not individually describe co-facilitation, nor are they exclusive to co-facilitation. I argue, however, that from the perspectives provided in my research, co-facilitation cannot be called ‘co-facilitation’ without them.

Co-facilitation is full of possibilities. Co-facilitators enter into the co-facilitation experience optimistically, hopefully and expectantly, wanting this co-facilitator to be the right person in the right place at the right time. This is an opportunity to “make a difference”, “to reach a vision”. They are there to “represent each other and the profession”, to “take a creative place in the community”. Every relationship is a possible recommendation, a lead to new contacts, an opportunity to build individual and collective reputations. Co-facilitators “commit to something long-term”, to something “enriching and worthwhile”.