Create Connections – How to Facilitate Small Groups

The information and strategies in this book will support educators, group facilitators, and community organizers—or just about anyone working with groups of people—in developing the necessary skills to facilitate groups. This book offers fun and insightful techniques and resources.

While small-group work is the most time-efficient and functional way of developing non-cognitive competencies, direct instruction in teaching facilitation skills for those leading these groups is also necessary. Intention, purpose, thought, structure, and lesson planning are essential components to initiate a meaningful group experience.

In an effectively led group, the participants will begin to learn from their experiences, and the facilitator’s role shifts to the observation of the process as the participants use their newly acquired behaviors. However, groups are only as effective as the facilitator’s skills. The focus of this book is to guide the facilitator on how to lead engaging activities that will be applicable in everyday life for the participants.

Create Connections: How to Facilitate Small Groups is designed to help school counselors, therapists and psychologists explore, in detail:

• Group facilitator skills
• Member dynamics
• Thought-provoking initiatives within the included lesson plans

People commonly assume that creating, developing and implementing a group is an easy task of simply convening a collection of like-minded individuals together. Rather than haphazard group development, we suggest a structured, intentional and purposeful group selection and process.

In Create Connections, a series of curriculum activities are provided. The progression of these activities is intentional, moving from low-risk to more in-depth topics. This book is designed to help make the group-development process both enjoyable and productive. The more one front-loads the planning process, the easier it will be to create connections in your group.