Cultivating Just Transition 2024 Facilitation Guide

This is a plaintext version of the resource published here

Introduction

Practice Circles are designed to offer space for reflection and questioning on a variety of themes related to cultivating a Just Transition. Rather than offering solutions or suggestions, circle members are invited to question and seek clarity, to create space for each other to come to next steps.

Over the course of the 6 sessions which will make up the Cultivating Just Transition 2024 Cohort, you’l hear from people with a variety of different perspectives and expertise, before going into your practice circles to explore these topics together. You’ll stay in the same circles for the whole process, and our hope is that as you get to know each other you’ll continue to develop trust and richness in your conversations.

This facilitation guide is inspired by the Action Learning Sets model but adapted for our use.

Guidelines

Dates for the Diary

25th April, 7-9pm: Practice Circle 1: Introduction, framing and co-developing group agreements

30th May, 7-8.30pm: Practice Circle 2: Accessibility

27th June, 7-80pm: Practice Circle 3: Trade Unions & Workers Rights

29th August, 7-8.30pm: Practice Circle 4: Global Just Transition & Climate Justice

26th September, 7-8.30pm: Practice Circle 5: Inner Transition / Power & Privilege

7th November, 7-8.30pm: Practice Circle 6: Closing and Next Steps

Roles

In each circle, you will be in one of the following roles:

Facilitator / time keeper: This person is responsible for making sure that timings and guidelines are respected. It’s helpful if they have a timer, phone or watch on them.

Presenter: This is the person who’s reflection will be focussed on during the circle. It will be decided at the start of each circle, and should alternate so that everyone has a chance to present at least once.

Circle member: The remainder of the participants will be ‘circle members’, who will listen and reflect back to the presenter, giving them space. It’s important to remember that the role of the circle members is not to offer advice.

Session Structure

10 minutes: Decide roles

5 minutes: Initial sharing by presenter

30 minutes: Go round with questions and reflections from the rest of the circle members

5 minutes: Closing and next steps

Timings are there to be supportive and make sure there’s sufficient time for each of the sections, and one voice doesn’t dominate. It works better if you respect them.

Decide Roles

Time: 10 minutes

Decide on one person to be facilitator and time keeper for today’s session. This will alternate.

Facilitator invites each participant to share a brief headline (max 1 min each) summary of a reflection / problem they would like to bring

You’ll come to a collective decision on which reflection will be focussed on today.

Initial Sharing 

Time: 5 minutes

The person whose reflection is the focus shares in more detail. Some helpful sentence starters:

During this time, the other participants listen closely (note taking may be helpful) and prepare to reflect back.

Questions & Reflection 

Time: 30 minutes

Go round for each other circle member to reflect back and ask questions (max 2 minutes each). The presenter then has an opportunity to answer questions or add any additional reflection before moving onto the next circle member. The reflection and questioning could include:

Closing 

Time: 5 minutes

The presenter has 3 minutes to share any last reflections and commitments to next steps.

Question Prompts

Questions asked by the circle members are meant to be exploratory and prompt reflection, rather than offer advice. Some prompts could include: 

And any other questions you can think of which will help the presenter self reflect.

FAQs

What if I can’t make it?

We appreciate that things come up, and there’s likely going to be times when you can’t make it. However, an important part of the circles working is a level of continuity and trust building, so please try to commit to come to each circle wherever possible. We’ve also invited you to assign at least one person from your group who can come if you’re unable to, to make sure that there’s enough people for the circles to function.

How much of a commitment is it?

The total time to attend all of the sessions between April and September is 10 hours, plus any time you want to spend reflecting on learning and action with your group. We have some limited budget to provide financial support for groups who that would support to engage. You can get in touch with Rona - ronahardie@transitionnetwork.org - if that would be supportive for you and your group.

Licence & Attribution - CC BY-SA 4.0

Created by Transition Together with the support of Transition Network. 

This edition first published in 2024 and released by Transition Together under the Creative Commons CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED licence. You are free to share and adapt these materials, with conditions of attribution and share alike. 

Find out more: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ 

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This booklet has been made possible thanks to funding we have received from The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest funder of community activity, from its Growing Great Ideas programme. We are grateful to National Lottery players for making this possible.

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