Appreciative Resilience Facilitator Training (ARFT)

Each of us lives in a complex and unpredictable world and we are called upon again and again to help others be resilient and to be resilient ourselves.

Bring your skill as an Appreciative Inquiry Facilitator to uplifting and sustaining your workplace and beyond with appreciative resilience. Appreciative resilience is a resilience practice built from the tenets of appreciative inquiry and from powerful resilience practices.

This Appreciative Resilience Facilitator Training (ARFT) is designed for appreciative inquiry practitioners who want to deliver the Appreciative Resilience workshop and the ALIVE workshop for clients and colleagues and/or foster appreciative resilience informally with organizations, teams and individuals. It is also excellent facilitation training for those seeking to facilitate in complex situations.

In this facilitator training you will delve into the facilitation practices and considerations for delivering two powerful resilience processes. The first process is the appreciative resilience practice that uses appreciative inquiry to examine how you can foster hope and a hopeful view as a foundation of resilience; utilize your strengths in times of challenge and despair; and undertake the will and power to forgive. The second process is the ALIVE practice which is a powerful tool to use in challenging times. ALIVE stands for Appreciate, Love, Inquire, Venture, and Evolve. This tool uses appreciative generative questions to examine resilience. 

Both of these appreciative resilience processes are built from the practices of appreciative inquiry and are based upon the appreciative resilience work and writing of Joan McArthur-Blair and Jeanie Cockell.

People often think of resilience as a response to weathering challenges but in appreciative resilience work the aim is to create a sustaining practice of resilience.

In this Appreciative Resilience Facilitator Training (ARFT) practitioners will advance and deepen their skills in:

• Facilitating complex conversations;
• Facilitating the appreciative resilience workshop;
• Facilitating the ALIVE workshop;
• Applying adult learning principals to facilitation;
• Reflecting on worldview and how it influences the approach to appreciative resilience facilitation;
• Incorporating a focus on justice, equity, diversity and inclusion into resilience conversations;
• Receiving and giving feedback on facilitation.

Participants must:

• Have a solid understanding of the foundations and application of Appreciative Inquiry.

SESSIONS 1 and 2: Be An Appreciative Resilience Facilitator for Complex and Challenging Times

INVITATION: Examine the research and underpinnings of resilience and how it interweaves with appreciative inquiry.

DIALOGUE:
• Examine resilience research
• Review the basics of Appreciative Inquiry
• Identify key aspects of the ALIVE and Appreciative Resilience models
• Explore the uses of Appreciative Inquiry in complex and challenging situations
• Reflect on facilitating in complex and challenging situations

SESSION 3: Facilitate the ALIVE Model

INVITATION: Explore and use the ALIVE model for facilitating in challenging times.

DIALOGUE:
• Bring adult learning principles to facilitation
• Examine the ALIVE model
• Reflect on facilitator considerations
• Facilitate sections of the ALIVE model
• Give and receive feedback

SESSIONS 4 and 5: Facilitate the Appreciative Resilience Model

INVITATION: Explore and use the Appreciative Resilience model with individuals, groups, and organizations.

DIALOGUE:
• Explore the Appreciative Resilience model elements
• Engage with Appreciative Resilience workshop formats
• Facilitate sections of the Appreciative Resilience model
• Give and receive feedback

SESSION 6: Sustain Your Practice and Facilitation of Appreciative Resilience

INVITATION: Integrate elements of Appreciative Resilience into your personal facilitation practices

DIALOGUE:
• Create ideas to integrate Appreciative Resilience into Appreciative Inquiry practices
• Examine worldviews, justice, equity, diversity and inclusion in relation to Appreciative Resilience facilitation practices
• Analyze personal facilitation boundaries and considerations
• Build a personal Appreciative Resilience facilitation plan
• Reflect on sustaining your Appreciative Resilience practice

In order to qualify for certification each participant will create a portfolio on how they are taking appreciative resilience out into the world. The portfolio can arise from creating and facilitating an event; providing a workshop; facilitating complex conversations; coaching; or other facilitation practice.

The portfolio might contain:
• Outline of what you have designed and facilitated;
• Images, video, agendas, themes, outcomes;
• Personal reflections on the experience of facilitating appreciative resilience.

The portfolio can be an info-graphic, video, written document, and/or other creative form. The portfolio is due 6 months after the program.

COURSE MATERIALS:

• Required textbook: This certification course utilizes the textbook, Building Resilience with Appreciative Inquiry: A Leadership Journey through Hope, Despair, and Forgiveness by Jeanie Cockell and Joan McArthur-Blair. Your trainers will assign readings from this book throughout your training. You will need to purchase this textbook prior to the start of this course. This book is available in electronic or paperback versions. Please select the version that is in alignment with your learning style and preference. You can purchase your textbook here.

Jeanie and Joan encourage you to read the textbook before joining the workshop to acquaint yourself with the appreciative resilience models and to re-acquaint yourself with appreciative inquiry.

METHOD OF DELIVERY:
These live conversations will be delivered using Zoom. You can participate in these live events using a computer or tablet. You will receive the Zoom information link and password closer to the start of the event.