- Starting discussions
- Polling community members
- Ensuring up-to-date content
- Keeping an eye on community links
- Making sure member questions are answered
- Coordinating member communication
- Identifying and utilizing experts
- Scheduling and hosting chat sessions
- Managing and organizing Community Resources
- Planning face to face community events
- Collecting Frequently Asked Questions
This also sounds like a huge workload, especially for a volunteer. Rewards are not always material and facilitation as part of a job description, may suitably recompense someone's time and expertise.
Do you need expertise in health care , or whatever the topic may be, to facilitate? Is experience in facilitating enough?
Reference
A.H.I.M.A. (2007). American Health Information Management Association Call for Volunteers, Retrieved 16/12/2007 http://www.ahima.org/directory/call_for_vols.asp
2 comments:
Joyce,
This is a very helpful summary. It will help me to focus if I ever find myself in a facilitator role.
Thanks for your hard work!
Heather
Hi Joyce
I'm a member of the International Association of Facilitators, and the "purist" line of thinking in regard to your question "Does the facilitator need knowledge of the topic?" would be a resounding No. There is a belief that content knowledge can hinder the facilitation process, because the facilitator will be tempted to get involved in the discussions rather than simply facilitate - or at the very least, the facilitator's own biases will show through and influence the discussion. I'm not sure that I agree with this line of thinking entirely though - I think a skilled facilitator will use her subject knowledge to ask questions rather than give input. The challenge for the facilitator is being able to live with the outcome of the group's discussion even if she doesn't agree with it.
A colleague whom I deeply respect and looked to as a mentor some years ago once said to me, "The most important thing in being a facilitator is not to want anything out of the process." It's easier to do this when you don't know anything about the subject under discussion, but I think the facilitator owes it to the group to have (or develop) some understanding of the issues; otherwise she wouldn't be able to carry out some of the most basic facilitation tasks such as summarising discussions, paraphrasing what people have said and ask for confirmation, etc.
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