Appreciative Inquiry Facilitator Training (AIFT) – Northern Essex Community College

The Center for Appreciative Inquiry is pleased to partner with Northern Essex Community College to host a hybrid Appreciative Inquiry Facilitator Training (AIFT) on their Haverhill, MA campus on May 23, 24, 25 & 26, 2023. If your organization would like to host an AIFT please contact us.

Appreciative Inquiry is a collaborative, strengths-based approach to both personal and organizational development that is proving to be highly effective in thousands of organizations and communities in hundreds of countries around the world. It is a way of bringing about change that shares leadership and learning, fully engaging everyone in the organization.

Appreciative Inquiry Facilitator Training© (AIFT) engages participants to learn about the foundations of Appreciative Inquiry as well as the skills to facilitate inquiry sessions. At the end of this intensive Appreciative Inquiry Facilitator Training (AIFT), participants will understand how to guide organizations, groups, and communities to consciously and deliberately shift their collective way of being and seeing to an appreciative approach, that will help them focus on what’s right in their organization, group or community, rather than on what’s wrong.

Leaders in businesses and corporations, community development, educational organizations, governmental organizations, and nonprofit organizations–in short, anyone who wants to learn how to facilitate Appreciative Inquiry.

The Appreciative Inquiry Facilitator Training© – AIFT – is a foundations course. It includes mini-lectures, and experiential learning (individual, pairs, trios, small group, and large group) as well as auditory and visual materials to enhance the learning experience.

Each day has a morning and afternoon session; a morning and afternoon break; and one hour for lunch (a variety of options will be provided by the host.)

AIFT is divided into 4 ‘segments’. Each segment consists of modules containing exercises, readings, and discussions.

DAY 1 – EXPERIENCING APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY
Learn basic process and experience AI by participating in a facilitated Appreciative Inquiry led by the Appreciative Inquiry Facilitator Training Trainers

DAY 2 – UNDERSTANDING THE POWER OF APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY
Actively learn about the concepts, principles, theories and research.

DAY 3 – PLANNING AND DESIGNING AN APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY SESSION
Plan and practice how you will begin helping your organization, group, or community build upon their strengths.

DAY 4 – PRACTICING APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY APPLICATIONS

• Practice exercises you can take home to use Appreciative Inquiry in your personal and professional life.
• Practice choosing the best language, words for facilitating Appreciative Inquiry within a particular culture.
• Begin developing your plan to become a certified Appreciative Inquiry Facilitator by completing a Practicum/Supervised Experience.

We start each day on time and work diligently to maintain the schedule, honoring the commitment to the learning experience. We have found full participation to be the most productive for the participants and the trainers.  To obtain a letter of completion (and to be eligible for consideration for certification) each participant must complete 26 training hours.

Days one through four begin at 8:30 a.m. for networking. The training sessions will begin promptly at 9:00 a.m. and end at 4:30 p.m. each day.

ORIENTATION

To ensure that all participants are off to a strong start, your AIFT trainers will host a live orientation session via Zoom – Wednesday, May 17, 2023, at 8:00 a.m. Pacific Time.   The trainers will provide an overview of the course timelines and learning outcomes and ensure you have access to the LMS which contains your materials and readings. Your interaction with your cohort and trainers within the LMS will enhance your learning and prepare you to begin your practicum.

You will have time to become familiar with the LMS, read assignments and engage with trainers and other participants prior to the first synchronous (live) session on the campus of NECC May 22, 2023

*Please note: all times listed above are Eastern Daylight Savings Time – EDT

As a fully engaged participant in the Appreciative Inquiry Facilitator Training (AIFT^©), you will leave the workshop better able to:

1. Create/enhance your personal way of being and doing in order to use an appreciative approach; focus on what’s right in your world, so that you can deeply inquire into what’s right and why, and then find ways of intentionally creating more of what’s right in your world.
2. Facilitate individuals, groups, organizations, and communities to create collective ways of being and doing using an appreciative approach; that will help them focus on what’s right so that they can deeply inquire into what’s right and why, and then find ways of intentionally working with them to both create more of what’s right and envision innovation and new ways of being and doing – on any topic that focuses on human systems change, i.e. “the way we do things.”

To obtain a letter of completion (and to be eligible for consideration for AI Facilitator Certification) each participant must complete 26 training hours. Letters of completion include your name, date of your training, and number of classroom hours earned.

Each of our certification courses require a written practicum (‘narrative’) of your work. The purpose of your practicum is to demonstrate your knowledge and understanding of the principles of Appreciative Inquiry, its various applications, what you learned, etc. Participants will submit their practicum for review by our Practicum Review Committee which consists of 2-4 seasoned AI practitioners. It is standard practice for the panel to engage participants in a conversation (conducted virtually) about their practicum. Typically, they will respond with questions to deepen their and the participant’s mutual understanding of, and learning about, AI. The practicum review is therefore a dialogical and interactive process.

Participants have up to one year from the date of their training to submit their practicum for review. During this time, your trainers make themselves available to you for mentoring and support (at no additional cost) as you work through your first inquiry. Your mentoring/support can be done via telephone, skype, zoom, etc. You and your trainers can arrange a time and platform in which to conduct these sessions. Learn more about our Appreciative Inquiry Facilitator Certification requirements here.

Once certified, your Appreciative Inquiry Facilitator Certification lasts for 2 years. AI Certification with the Center for Appreciative Inquiry includes:

• Appreciative Inquiry Certification document that will be emailed to you for your records;
• Center for Appreciative Inquiry Certification logo that you are welcome to embed on your website or include in your email signature;
• Listing on our Appreciative Inquiry Directory. Your AI Directory listing is an editable profile page that includes your photo and professional biography that highlights your specialties, articles, videos and testimonials. Directory profiles are easy to create and update and will make you locatable by our worldwide audience. All Directory profiles will remain visible on our website for the duration of your certification. Our Appreciative Inquiry certification is good for 2 years; after which you may renew your AI certification. You can learn more about the benefits of our AI Directory here.

Address:

Northern Essex Community College
100 Elliott St
Haverhill, MA 01830
Lunch is included.

Hotel Suggestions:

• Located in Newburyport, Massachusetts a 15 min drive from campus: Essex Street Inn
• Located in Haverhill, Massachusetts a 5 minute drive to campus: Hampton Inn

Airport Options:

• Boston-Logan International Airport – BOS
• Manchester-Boston Regional Airport – MHT
• Portland, Maine Jetport – PWM 

Link to Campus Map and Directions: https://www.necc.mass.edu/directions-maps/

Campus Map PDF

Parking info:  Parking is free and requires no campus registration in the Technology Center parking lot. This lot is labelled VP in the map.

Participants will receive login information to the Center for Appreciative Inquiry’s (CAI) online learning platform closer to the training date. We will open the online platform to participants prior to the start of the training. This allows participants time to navigate the software and become acquainted with the various features and tools it offers, introduce themselves to their trainers and other AIFT participants, and access all pre-workshop reading and materials.

Please plan to bring your laptop to the college as we engage in the asynchronous work in the online learning platform (learning management system). 

As visitors to the campus, proof of vaccination is not required, however, we will request campus registration via a QR code at the beginning of the AIFT training.  Information in the registration will only be used for contact tracing purposes if needed.   Please know the NECC campus is a fully vaccinated campus; all employees and students on campus are vaccinated.

All fees are due upon registration. Please note that travel, accommodations and hotel/airport transportation are separate. 

Your full participation is very important to us and we know that from time to time, your plans to attend one of our workshops or programs may change.  Our refund policy reflects our interest in your continued growth and learning journey as well as our planning needs and expenses incurred based on your enrollment. For more information about our Refund Policy, please click here.

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