Latest / Professor Peterson’s Psychology Classroom / Encouraging Every Voice: Mastering Group Facilitation

Transcript

Encouraging Every Voice: Mastering Group Facilitation · Professor Peterson’s Psychology Classroom

• 0:05
  Welcome to Professor Peterson's Psychology Classroom,
• 0:09
  connecting the science of human behavior to everyday life.
• 0:13
  Here's Dr. Curtis Peterson.
• 0:18
  All right, so the
• 0:21
  next part, as you could probably, uh,
• 0:24
  imagine from the 3 principles of participation,
• 0:29
  this next component of facilitation tends
• 0:33
  to grow out of that naturally. And one
• 0:37
  of the goals of group
• 0:41
  facilitation is to encourage participation.
• 0:46
  This is done through— I'm just gonna go through these and then
• 0:50
  we're gonna kind of detail them out a little bit. Check for comfort,
• 0:55
  allow all ideas to be heard, make members
• 1:00
  feel good about their contributions,
• 1:03
  ideas and decisions should be a group-nominated decision,
• 1:08
  and to be supportive. Okay, so check
• 1:14
  for comfort is— if you remember, uh,
• 1:18
  at the beginning of the class we talked about the defense mechanisms.
• 1:21
  Okay, check for comfort is
• 1:25
  us nonverbally continually scanning
• 1:30
  the group room and seeing if
• 1:34
  we're seeing any behavioral discomfort,
• 1:37
  usually denoted by individuals going more and more
• 1:41
  into a fetal position and closing off physically.
• 1:47
  The 2nd way, of course, is verbally, and this usually occurs
• 1:51
  in, in 2 forms. Either someone
• 1:55
  will directly say, I am not comfortable discussing
• 1:58
  this topic. That is the 1st form.
• 2:02
  The other form is someone who,
• 2:05
  when it comes to their turn, they just kind of put their head down
• 2:09
  and kind of try to avoid them
• 2:13
  being selected to be the next person to
• 2:16
  talk. Okay, now we've got to be
• 2:20
  careful with that 3rd form of—
• 2:25
  because it may come from different ideas.
• 2:30
  One, remember, we've got to keep culture in mind.
• 2:35
  And sometimes I learned in one group that
• 2:39
  it wasn't appropriate for the females to talk
• 2:43
  before all the males had a chance to talk.
• 2:47
  And so I would, not knowing that, would select
• 2:51
  a female participant, and she would instantly
• 2:54
  put her head down and just start shaking her head. So there's
• 2:58
  culture issues that we have to make sure that we respect,
• 3:03
  because your group is not probably to
• 3:08
  change what you feel is problematic issues with
• 3:12
  your participants' culture. That's not one of the goals of
• 3:17
  group facilitation, at least in the areas where
• 3:21
  we're working. Okay, in other one—
• 3:24
  in other incidents, you're dealing with things like shyness,
• 3:29
  and you can be dealing
• 3:32
  with someone who has an anxiety-type
• 3:36
  disorder. Okay, um, and you can
• 3:39
  kind of put these on a continuum of shyness,
• 3:43
  which is the fear, the emotional fear of,
• 3:48
  uh, speaking out or talking. Okay, to social
• 3:52
  anxiety, where it is the anxiety mind-building
• 3:58
  idea of it's just going to
• 4:02
  create a lot of cascading problems if I
• 4:06
  talk.
• 4:09
  And they're more comfortable avoiding
• 4:13
  those anxiety triggers by just not engaging,
• 4:16
  by withdrawing. Okay. And so
• 4:22
  make sure you use your client history and your knowledge about
• 4:26
  your clients really determine this, to really
• 4:30
  look at the level of comfort. Because with both
• 4:34
  shyness and anxiety, what they're looking
• 4:38
  for is normality, consistency,
• 4:42
  and looking at how other participants
• 4:46
  are reacting to other participants so
• 4:51
  they know if they speak out, what they should expect
• 4:54
  to have replied to them.
• 4:58
  So it's really setting that level of comfort to,
• 5:03
  to make sure that that can occur. Allow all
• 5:06
  ideas to be heard. And throughout
• 5:10
  this class, there's been various questions from you guys,
• 5:14
  and I brought it up a few times. What do you do
• 5:18
  with individuals who monopolize a group,
• 5:22
  okay? And in these series of presentations
• 5:27
  over the next 4 weeks, we'll talk about different
• 5:31
  things you can do, such as having a talking stick.
• 5:35
  Some groups I facilitated, I allowed them to decide,
• 5:39
  and some of them came up with a little timer.
• 5:42
  Some come up with different ways of managing
• 5:47
  that type of perspective.
• 5:53
  From a facilitation perspective, we will learn
• 5:57
  how to do what are called interrupters. And I know
• 6:01
  that sounds like a harsh word, the word interrupt.
• 6:06
  I wonder if we should try in this class to coin
• 6:10
  a different term for this skill. But this is where
• 6:14
  you are actually purposely interrupting someone who is
• 6:18
  monopolizing the time and quickly
• 6:21
  doing a real quick reflection. And then
• 6:26
  instead of saying to that client,
• 6:29
  did I hear you correctly? You say it
• 6:33
  to the rest of the class, to the rest of the group, and say,
• 6:37
  I'm wondering what other group members are thinking about that.
• 6:41
  Does anybody else have an opinion? Or an idea,
• 6:44
  and you shouldn't really say the word opinion, I apologize about that.
• 6:48
  Does anybody else have a different or same experience
• 6:54
  as Joe is having?
• 6:58
  Okay. And this is making sure that even
• 7:02
  with that shy person, you give them
• 7:06
  the— when we, when we talk later on about
• 7:09
  silence, giving them that full 20 seconds
• 7:13
  of silence to answer or not answer,
• 7:18
  and then moving on to provide them back
• 7:22
  into their comfort zone until they feel like they're
• 7:25
  able to contribute. Okay, um,
• 7:29
  and sometimes this means groups go over a little
• 7:32
  bit of time, and we'll talk about time basis
• 7:36
  of groups and how we should honor the start and
• 7:40
  stop times. But once in a while, uh, in order
• 7:45
  to get all group members to be heard, you might have
• 7:49
  to slip over the time limit a little bit. So,
• 7:52
  ideas and decisions should be group
• 7:56
  nominated. Okay, uh, or again,
• 7:59
  I'll go back to earlier in this course.
• 8:03
  When we talked about establishing the group rules.
• 8:08
  Group rules being, you know,
• 8:12
  we arrive on time, we respect
• 8:16
  each other, we leave the room the way we
• 8:19
  arrived to it, all of those kind of 4 or 5
• 8:24
  standard group rules.
• 8:29
  I will keep things confidential. That's usually another
• 8:33
  big one in the list. And then usually we say,
• 8:37
  does the group have any other rules you
• 8:41
  want for this group? All right.
• 8:44
  And then you have them go through a kind of democratic process
• 8:49
  of deciding which additional rules there should be
• 8:54
  or shouldn't be. The other idea behind this
• 8:57
  is ideas and decisions should be group nominated is
• 9:04
  we set up usually, especially with manualized groups,
• 9:08
  what the goal of that day is gonna be.
• 9:12
  And we already come with the skills
• 9:17
  that we want to facilitate
• 9:20
  in that group. And so, when we say ideas
• 9:24
  and decisions should be group nominated,
• 9:27
  this is ideas of where, okay, so today we're
• 9:31
  going to do trigger
• 9:34
  reduction, and then we're going to role-play it. And then we're going,
• 9:38
  in the role-play, the trigger might be your partner.
• 9:42
  And so, we're going to have you role-play with each other having
• 9:47
  a healthy argument or a healthy discussion
• 9:51
  with each other. Okay, in the group
• 9:57
  ideas and decision, this is where you let the group decide
• 10:01
  how that role play is going to play out.
• 10:05
  You can give some suggestions. This is where you,
• 10:11
  when, when the person is done, persons is done doing
• 10:15
  the role play, you don't instantly say,
• 10:18
  Yes, this is what you did good. This is what you did wrong.
• 10:22
  Usually you say, thank you so much for doing
• 10:26
  that role play. What does the group think?
• 10:29
  What did they do right? What could have they improved on?
• 10:33
  And you let the group go through the process first,
• 10:38
  and then, uh, afterwards you provide
• 10:42
  your feedback. Because do remember you are a member
• 10:46
  of that group, but it should be group
• 10:50
  facilitated, not expert facilitated. Okay?
• 10:54
  And then the last one on our list
• 10:58
  is be supportive, of course. And this
• 11:03
  one is, I think, one of the easier ones because I think
• 11:08
  this is one of the reasons everyone is getting into this
• 11:11
  field in the first place, to support and facilitate
• 11:15
  change and help people out. And this one tends
• 11:19
  to come a little bit more naturally, but we will get
• 11:23
  into, again, in these facilitation skills,
• 11:27
  when does being supportive become being
• 11:32
  enabling? Okay, because there is some lines
• 11:36
  that we have to draw In our back of our
• 11:40
  mind, we're saying we're doing this to support the client,
• 11:44
  but sometimes we have to stop and say,
• 11:47
  am I enabling the client to continue
• 11:51
  the behaviors that they're doing through me being
• 11:57
  thinking that I'm being supportive in this idea?
• 12:01
  Okay. And an example of this
• 12:05
  I can think about is like with couples therapy,
• 12:10
  where one of the couple members is breaking down and
• 12:14
  is blaming the, uh, the, the, uh,
• 12:17
  other one. And in your mind,
• 12:22
  you're supporting them expressing, uh,
• 12:25
  what they're doing. And then the partner who's
• 12:30
  hearing that Um, you're also doing what's called ganging,
• 12:34
  uh, is that you're getting on their side and saying, hey, you did all
• 12:38
  these things to this person, what they're saying.
• 12:42
  And, uh, you feeling that you're being supportive for that person
• 12:46
  finally being able to say what they're saying,
• 12:51
  but then you're starting to lose the
• 12:54
  support for the individual that is hearing it. And that
• 12:58
  usually, I will tell you all, ends up creating a
• 13:02
  very— makes things even worse in the end.
• 13:07
  It makes it so that the other one who is receiving
• 13:11
  that information closes up, they will not talk anymore,
• 13:15
  or they will get even more angry and aggressive.
• 13:19
  And so, making sure we balance those things,
• 13:23
  especially when it comes to group arguments,
• 13:29
  group conflict, that we make sure that we are giving
• 13:33
  support to the sender and the receiver equally.
• 13:39
  Okay, so again, I am going to ask
• 13:43
  before we move on if anyone has any
• 13:47
  questions.