Creative Facilitation Testimonial – HAF-DEFINE 

Can you tell us about a time you engaged with the Creative Facilitation Unit?

Last year, I worked as part of a research team at Durham University in collaboration with the University of Birmingham and University of Bristol on a national study developing a best practice framework for the Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme. The HAF programme is a Department for Education funded initiative providing funded holiday clubs to children who receive free school meals. 

I led on one aspect of the research, which focused on using creative facilitation methods to explore why so many eligible families do not make use of funded holiday clubs and to understand how the school holidays are experienced from their perspective. 

Seven members of the research team from across England were brought together for a two-day in-person training course ‘The Fundamentals of Creative Facilitation’ delivered by Mary Robson and co-facilitated by Dawn Williams. Mary tailored the training so that it was relevant for researchers working with children and families. 

The training provided tools and ideas that could be used in a range of contexts and enabled peer support in the development of the project’s methods. All of the researchers who participated in the training were also given the opportunity to have a follow up session with Mary to provide further mentoring support and to strengthen sustainable creative facilitation skills in the team.

How have you used creative facilitation in the Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) DEFINE project?

After taking part in the two-day creative facilitation course, the research team co-developed a workshop plan with advice and guidance from Mary. Creative activities were developed that would generate dialogue between participants and explore different perspectives on the school holiday experiences of families living in poverty. We were interested in how families spend their time during school holidays, what they would like to be doing, and the barriers and facilitators to families having a positive school holiday experience.  

59 participants (22 adults and 37 children) took part in seven workshops across three locations in England. Parents took part with their children, who were aged between 7-11 years. Families were recruited through organisations such as schools, alternative provision settings, community centres, food aid and housing organisations. All families were eligible for means-tested free school meals, but many were also facing additional challenges such as school exclusion, caring for a disabled family member, living in insecure housing and social isolation.  

The number of workshop participants varied depending on the setting but ranged from 2-6 family groups per workshop. The activities were deliberately developed to involve a combination of individual and collaborative activities with some activities involving children working together with their parents and others engaging with adults and children separately. Each workshop was co-led by two to five researcher-facilitators depending on the number of participants. Mary or Dawn co-facilitated three of the workshops in the North East, which meant the mentoring and peer support of the research team was ongoing and the plans could be developed in-situ. This gave the research team the confidence to adopt a more intuitive and responsive approach, which was a key skill developed through the training. 

What were the benefits of using creative facilitation?

Mary’s training helped the research team to consider the issue of non-attendance at holiday clubs in a different way. In the development of the workshops, we adopted an asset-based approach that aimed to focus on families’ experiences and hopes for the school holidays rather than their lack of awareness or engagement with holiday clubs. In this project, creative activities and facilitation techniques were used as a way of giving families a greater degree of control over how they represented themselves, by having the opportunity to develop, describe and explain what they created and the meaning they were trying to convey in dialogue with others. We found that designing activities that were open and multi-layered can provide more depth and nuance as people are prompted to reflect on the meaning of what they communicate. This uncovered new insights and experiences that may have remained hidden had we used a more conventional approach.  

In comparison to when a researcher runs a focus group or interview by asking a list of questions, creative facilitation provides a set of underpinning theories that focuses the researcher’s attention on how they develop positive relationships, flatten hierarchies and create environments where participants feel valued, heard and able to express themselves in a range of ways. This felt particularly important when working with groups of people who are experiencing intersectional disadvantage or those with negative past experiences of engaging with professionals. In contexts where more conventional approaches may feel extractive or alienating, creative facilitation can offer a more accessible and person-centred research environment.

Were there any challenges? How did you resolve them? 

Some members of the research team reflected on the potential tension between trying to create a warm and welcome environment and set the tone for the workshop at the start, whilst simultaneously being required to share fairly complex information about the research aims and ethical procedures such as data management to ensure informed consent. This highlighted the need to adapt or use alternative formats to the usual information sheets and consent forms that are used in research. 

Creative facilitation requires the researcher to be flexible in response to the people in the room, changing the time, pace or activities if they are not working for participants. This level of flexibility and uncertainty was challenging and uncomfortable for the members of the research team who were used to working in more structured research environments. We found that co-facilitating as a pair or group gave us more confidence to be intuitive and adaptive.  

Whilst the research team appreciated the opportunity to devise new, creative activities and use creative facilitation in the HAF project, many struggled with how to develop their skills and apply them to different research contexts. As creative facilitation cannot be easily summarised with a toolkit or checklist, it requires ongoing development and support.

What role, if any, do you see for creative facilitation in your future work?

I have used the skills I gained through working with Mary in a range of different settings and contexts. In addition to university research settings, I have facilitated workshops with library managers to develop an evaluation framework for the library service in Gateshead, supported colleagues to apply facilitation frameworks and methods to reach consensus on strategic priorities, and used creative facilitation in public involvement and community engagement work with communities. At a time when Artificial Intelligence is replacing so much of what we do, the art of bringing people together feels more vital than ever.