FAQs
Frequently Asked Questions
Our FAQs can be organised using the filter categories at the top of this page. If you have any other questions that are not covered, then please get in touch.
We would welcome additions to the resources and tools sections of our website. The main criteria are that the resources and tools are useful for our members, and are clear, helpful and well presented. We would welcome any feedback on whether we achieving our aim or not. Please review what is already there and then submit any contributions or suggestions by email. On receipt, these will be evaluated for inclusion by our editorial board and you will be fully credited if we use your contribution.
A Learning Record is an online personal record available via the members’ area of the Association of Facilitators website. It is partly a CV, partly your own Professional Development Plan (PDP), and partly your own journal.
There are 6 sections within which you cumulatively record your experiences, qualifications, training, feedback, insights, and intentions. Clients and peers are able to contribute feedback directly into your Learning Record if you request them to do so.
This resource, available to all Affiliate and Accredited members, supports reflective practice, appreciative inquiry, and action research approaches to personal learning and professional development.
It is confidential and only visible to you and your AoF trainers/supervisors.
We hope and intend that you do! We provide a free service for organisations needing facilitators for an event. On receiving details of the enquiry from them, we use the details that you provide to us to send a short list of candidates. We prioritise introductions of Accredited Members, partly as an additional membership benefit and also because their approach and practice is known to be in alignment with ours. Organisations will contact applicants and contract with facilitators directly. The Association of Facilitators is not part of the agreement, nor do we receive a fee from the organisations.
In return for this benefit, in addition to acting in alignment with the AoF Code of Practice, we would appreciate remaining informed about your experience. We may also seek client feedback directly. We request a 20% finders fee from facilitators on completion of the assignment (we will invoice you when you notify us) which covers our costs and also enables us to provide background support to you, as our member specifically on each assignment we introduce you for. For example, you would be welcome to call us for support and guidance on planning, preparation and at the review stage. We see this as a mutual, three-way benefit for you, us and the organisation.
More broadly, we promote facilitation as a profession through our research and events and promote AoF Accredited Facilitators as a skilled and supported group of professional facilitators.
We know that facilitation skills are essential to many roles where groups and teams work together, whether in business, education, community or other settings. Even if you are not working in a role entitled ‘Facilitator’ most people who lead or participate in groups benefit from developing skills in understanding and guiding groups to achieve their results.
Managers and team leaders often report that training in facilitation skills enables light to be shed on the often unexplored aspects of groups – communication, process, and relationships – often the things that bring people engagement and project success. Leaders report that facilitation skills are the ‘missing link’ in their education and experience, sometimes describing the learning as ‘what I wish I’d learnt on my MBA’.
For those who are already committed to a career path as a facilitator, or a career path that utilises their skills in facilitating groups, the Association of Facilitators can provide a clear path for professional development and substantial resources to support them.
Our aim is to empower individuals and encourage the self-regulation of facilitator competence. We believe that this is best attained through the process of Self and Peer Assessment. This means that you, supported and challenged by your peer group, have the authority to assess your own performance.
This is not quite the same as the Self and Peer Accreditation process which we use alongside Self and Peer Assessment – the final say on Accreditation and Membership resides with the Association of Facilitators. Representatives of the AoF themselves undergo self and peer-directed supervision to support them in administering this process with competence, reliability, and validity.
Our research has shown that the process administered in this way provides both a rigorous and challenging environment for learning and assessment. Participants report that they engage in a thorough inquiry into their skills, knowledge, and awareness and that they become more familiar with their blind spots and areas for development. The process builds critical reflection in participants and develops personal authority and emotional competence.
Experiential learning means that nobody just sits back and listens or takes notes – all participants learn through felt and shared experience. For example, if we are learning experientially about a particular model of group dynamics, we may encourage participants to describe and evaluate the model against their own experience as a member of many different groups (educational, social, family, professional), as well as to explore their here-and-now experience as a group member.
This way of working results in a deeper level of awareness and connection to the learning material, which can be better be employed in service of group facilitation for clients. As well as learning from their own internal experience of external events, participants report learning extensively from others sharing their personal and professional life experience in a group setting.
Experiential learning is highly effective and developmental in adult, group-learning environments, allowing communities of practice to evolve.
Being an Accredited Member of the AoF signals competence and commitment to professional development as a facilitator. In order to gain accreditation, members train with us and participate in a self-and-peer accreditation process where they assess their competence as a facilitator against our Facilitator Competency Model FACETS®. They review their accreditation every three years, and undertake required professional development in years 2 and 3.
Accredited Membership also demonstrates commitment to a high standard of working as set out in our Code of Practice. Members accredited at Level 1 have undertaken a short Foundations course of 5 days.
Members accredited at Level 2 have undertaken a Certificate Programme and Members accredited at Level 3 have undertaken a Post-graduate Diploma Programme.
Substantial support is available for Accredited Facilitators, from online resources and supervision meetings through to free one-to-one support for planning and reviewing facilitation events.
Affiliate Membership is ideally suited to you if you are either training to become a facilitator or working as a facilitator already. By signing up for Affiliate Membership you can:
- receive a regular newsletter
- attend a Group Supervision day at no extra cost
- work towards Accredited Membership
- access your own confidential, online, personalised Learning Record
- describe yourself to your clients and on your CV or marketing material as an Affiliate Member of AoF
- Let clients and others know that you subscribe to our Code of Practice
Affiliate Membership costs £220 per year.
Becoming a guest member is free and enables you to be kept up to date with the Association’s activities and publications in the sphere of facilitation through our quarterly newsletter, as well as receiving advanced notice of forthcoming training courses, supervision and open days.
In addition, if you join as a guest member you will automatically receive a self-evaluation version of our Facilitator Competency Model FACETS®.