Choosing a facilitator
Depending on the event, you can use an internal facilitator (who may be you), a community member or an external facilitator, or some combination of these three.
- When to use an internal (departmental) facilitator
- When to facilitate the event yourself
- When to use community members as facilitators
- When to use an external facilitator
- When to use a number of different facilitators
When to use an internal (departmental) facilitator
- Where there is low potential for conflict within the group
- Where the agency has a good reputation and relationship with the community
- Where the internal facilitator has high-level skills
- Where there is significant positive community interest in the issue
- When it is important that the agency is seen to be taking a prominent role
When to facilitate the event yourself
- Where this is a good-news event
- Where you have high-level skills
- When this is supported by your agency
- Where you want to get to know the community and have them get to know you
- Where you are able to focus on the process and not get subsumed by the content of the discussion
When to use community members as facilitators
- Where you want to increase community ownership of the issue
- Where you are more likely to get a richness of views as a result
- Where community members have high-level facilitation skills
- Where this approach will help to manage community issues
- Where you are working to build sustainability and leadership in the community
When to use an external facilitator
- Where the facilitator has to be, or be seen to be, independent of the department/community/issue
- Where the issue is significant
- Where there is some conflict involved that is not best managed internally
- Where you need a highly skilled facilitator and do not have access to one internally
- When you need a facilitator with particular appeal to certain community groups, e.g. young people
When to use a number of different facilitators
- Where there are a number of skilled facilitators within government and the community
- Where partnerships are important
- Where capacity-building and modelling are important
- Where different facilitators are likely to be more effective during different phases of an event
- When there are many participants and multiple facilitators are required
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