Sydney Facilitators Network September Meeting - September 10

Monday September 10, 2012 | 5.30pm Temporary Room Change August and Sept 2012 only | Same Venue | UTS Building 10 Level 2, Room 470 | Jones St (main entrance) level, first room on the right past the Cafe   ‘Peace Building’ with Christina Deangelis and Shoshana Faire   "Creators of Peace is an international grass roots organisation which empowers women to be radical peace-builders, starting with themselves.   This facilitation will give a small 'taste' of a Creators of Peace circle. Whilst Creators of Peace currently focuses on women, this session encourages us all to explore what peace means to us as facilitators and what our potential roles as “peace-builders” could be.  We will also discuss some of the facilitation methods and principles used in the Creators of Peace circles.   The focus is on building trust and friendship across divides and differences through sharing personal stories and on understanding the nature of peace and the role of each of us plays in destroying or creating peace.  Creators of Peace Circles have taken place in over thirty countries around the world from Sudan to Switzerland, to Sydney and the Solomon Islands.   Creators of Peace: http://www.iofc.org/creators-of-peace   Facilitators   The session will be co-facilitated by Christina Deangelis and Shoshana Faire, who have been running Peace Circles in Australia, Nepal, Switzerland and elsewhere.  As an experienced and skilful facilitator, Christina has worked with over 100 organisations in Australia and overseas. Her clients have included public servants and police cadets in Northern Ireland, ex-combatants in the Solomon Islands, university students, teachers, Rotarians, and young people throughout Asia and Eastern Europe.   Shoshana brings over 25years experience in the field of Conflict Resolution and facilitation. As cofounder of the Conflict Resolution Network and Director of Professional Facilitators International she has brings extensive experience in leading skills development programs, facilitating meetings, resolving conflicts, mediating and coaching. She brings an enthusiasm and caring that comes with being passionate about her chosen field.   Venue:  Temporary Room Change August, Sept 2012 Same Venue | UTS Building 10 | Level 2 (Jones St level) Room 470 (Front entrance level- First room on the right past the café and IT area) University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Building 10, Jones Street, Ultimo corner Thomas Street.     Time: From 5:30pm to 7:30pm sharp | No RSVP - Just turn up Blog www.facilitatorsnetwork.blogspot.com

Grace Leota - Workforce Issues Interview

Grace Leota who is the Director of Affirm - Organizational Development and Training has been interviewed on the Sector Workforce Issues by Miguel Ferrero (MF), convener of the Training Directions Network. This is a summary of the conversation.

What has been your career path to your current job?

·         Direct work – community development and family work in a large non-government disability service – now known as the Cerebral Palsy Alliance

·         Several years in a coordination and management role at the Cerebral Palsy Alliance

·         A community development position in local government – Leichhardt Council

·         A training and development position at CCWT

·         A management role for a new national disability service – the National Parent Information Project

·         Self employment as a consultant.

Have also been on the Board/Management Committee of several organisations including the Experiential Education Association and the International Association of Public Participation (IAP2) Australasian Chapter.

What in your opinion are the key workforce issues faced by the community sector?

These are not in order of importance, priority etc.:

·         Staff with knowledge and skills in working with people with complex needs – co-occurring issues e.g. homelessness, mental health issues domestic

·         Staff with knowledge and skills in working in a coordinated way with other agencies – need for collaborative structures, processes and skills between non-government services and across government and non-government services

·         The use of technology in service provision e.g. electronic referrals, social media for service promotion and communication with ‘clients’ – issues: privacy and confidentiality, need for up to date equipment and staff skills

·         Need for qualifications for work which previously did not require quals e.g. direct care roles with older people and people with a disability

·         Maintaining volunteers – may be interested in short term ‘work’ which will lead to employment

·         Maintaining staff in the non-government sector when they can receive higher wages in the government sector (pay change in the future with pay equity)

·         Maintaining staff if funding is contract based – potentially project based and short term

·         The increasing ‘statutory’ responsibilities of workers in non-government agencies e.g. child protection and impact on staff roles, skills, support, job satisfaction

·         Career pathways for workers – recognition opportunities for sideways career move

·         Recognising the skills, knowledge and experience that diversity brings

·         Valuing and using the different skills of different generations of workers

·         Staff who can balance evidence based practice and innovation and responsiveness

·         Responding to needs, advocating individual/families and communities, focusing on social justice and change in an increasing contractual environment (contractual relationships with funding bodies) - impacts on service provision and worker satisfaction.

What strategies the sector could develop to address these issues?

·         Strengthening of peak bodies to:

o   Provide workforce development – accredited and non-accredited training and development opportunities

o   Resource the sector e.g. with technology and technology skills, resourcing of local/regional networks, resourcing and supporting collaboration e.g. local collaborative cross agency structures, secondments/’work experience’ in other agencies

o   Advocate and lobby on behalf of the sector

o   Establish models of service, service standards etc. with the contribution of ‘service users’ and communities (to ensure they are sector and community driven not just funding body driven)

·         Participate in and support strong advocacy and social justice organisations which have an independent voice

·         Support ‘service user’ and community groups and organisations and build service accountability to them.

What is your advice to the Community Sector that could be helpful to face these issues?

·         Participate in local and regional networks and foster them as learning communities/communities of practice

·         Seek funds for peak bodies and local networks for workforce development

·         Establish collaborative structures and processes e.g. local committees for referrals similar to Family Case Management

·         Participate in broader advocacy organisations/networks

·         Use a variety of processes including on-line to connect with others, share, learn

·         Support workers to gain qualifications while maintaining high standards (rigorous) – establish relationships between tertiary educational institutions, training organisations and practitioners.

Sydney Facilitators Network - August 13 meeting

Next Meeting | Monday August 13, 2012 | 5.30pmTemporary Room Change August, Sept, 2012
Same Venue | UTS Building 10 | Aug + Sept only - Level 2 (Jones St level) Room 470

SOARING – A strengths based approach to strategic thinking and planning with John Loty

SOAR is a positive strengths-based approach to strategic thinking and planning.  It is a development of the Appreciative Inquiry (AI) philosophy and methodology.

Instead of the traditional SWOT analysis, the SOAR model encourages us to identify our Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations and Results.

The goals for the 'quick' SOAR session:

1. To provide an experience of the SOAR process so that you can evaluate if SOAR would work for you or could be used by you in your particular contexts

2. To apply the SOAR model to explore the forces and factors that give life to facilitators in our work

3. To appreciatively inquire into (and perhaps be inspired by) the "root causes of success" experienced by other facilitators

John Loty has worked with Appreciative Inquiry and SOAR thought leaders around the world and uses these strengths based approaches in all his work. 

So come along and enjoy the experience of ‘soaring’. 

For more information about AI visit:  www.appreciativeinquiry.net.au

Venue:  Temporary Room Change August, Sept 2012
Same Venue | UTS Building 10 | Level 2 (Jones St level) Room 470

University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Building 10, Jones Street, Ultimo corner Thomas Street.

Five trends changing tertiary education

In an article published by the Conversation, Professor Gilly Salmon explain how five technological trends will transform tertiary education in the following decades. Link of the article has been attached to this Blog entry:

http://theconversation.edu.au/tech-for-teaching-five-trends-changing-higher-education-7617

MF

Changes in the hosting website

Due to changes in our hosting website, we have not been able to post blog entries during June. We are back in July.

MF

Online Learners Frustration - Report

Results from this study has revealed that frustration is a common feeling among students involved in online

collaborative learning experiences. The perception of an asymmetric collaboration among

the teammates was identified by the students as the most important source of frustration.

Online learners also identified difficulties related to group organization, the lack of shared

goals among the team members, the imbalance in the level of commitment and quality of

the individual contributions, the excess time spent on the online CSCL tasks, the imbalance

between the individual and collective grades, and difficulties in communication, among

other factors leading to frustration.


Report: http://apo.org.au/research/are-online-learners-frustrated-collaborative-learning-experiences


MF

Two interesting Reports

I want to share these two reports. I have attached the links for your perusal:



http://apo.org.au/research/australian-social-trends-march-2012


http://apo.org.au/research/change-work-and-learning-aligning-continuing-education-and-training


MF