How can you create a safe space for participants during a facilitation?

As the facilitator, seek true dialogue and ask real questions. Encourage participants to examine their personal assumptions by checking in with others rather than hiding or defending them. Speak from personal experience by using I statements and do not generalize about others.

It is important to be clear with the instructions. Make people comfortable to share in a non judgmental zone but place of learning. By allowing free thinking creativity can grow.

Creating a safe space within daily interactions for facilitations is key as a leader. Sometimes this means being more open with your team, for example: Each time a leader shares their own areas of development (e.g. one piece of constructive feedback they received), they ultimately contribute to increasing trust and establish interacting with them as a safe space.

As the facilitator, search for genuine discourse and ask probing questions. Encourage people to question their personal assumptions by checking in with others rather than hiding or protecting them. Speak from personal experience, utilising I statements, rather than generalising about others.

You have to design for the conversation you want to have. Just putting people in a room doesn’t work but you have to prepare and start with what are we trying to achieve at the end of this time together. The way you show up as a facilitator also matters. Your tone, the way you kick off the time and being able to drive the conversation fluidly. Facilitation is an art.

Trust is given as much as it is earned. One manner in which you can do so respectfully as a facilitator is to entrust your participants with an appropriate but personal account: a unique story, a genuine fear or aspiration, etc. Taking initiative and showing you trust the group and its members encourages members to reciprocate towards you and their fellows.

The check-in is the most helpful practice to build rapport and trust in my opinion. Pick questions relevant for the objectives of the day, as well as for people to be able to share their state of mind more openly. What it does is that it creates a different level of connection and trust between the attendees.

Trust and Rapport is the illusion that takes place; Simplest example is this; if someone you love give you coffee, you will gladly accept it. if someone you hate gives you coffee, you will really be skeptical about it (is it poison? what's up? what's the intention) hence in creating trust and rapport is to clearly define expectations and to be present (not bring old news to the table) and focusing on the challenge that the team is solving Simple tool to repeat; it is not you, it is not me, it is the problem

This step is critically important. Too often I see leaders expecting people in the room to treat it as a safe space to share and take risks, yet they do nothing to build trust and rapport in the moment. They state that it needs to be this type of space. But saying it doesn't make it true. It's not like a light switch, where you get to make everyone instantly comfortable in the blink of an eye. It takes time. Work to build trust and rapport from the moment your meeting or workshop starts. And by the time it comes time to share and maybe even be a little vulnerable, be sure you've provided several opportunities to prove that this is, in fact, a safe space. Then watch the magic happen.

To balance participation with a respect for privacy or shyness, particularly in early facilitation or when member may fear backlash for participation, consider utilizing anonymous or semi-anonymous resources and tools. Invite respectful constructive criticism to ensure more genuine discussion among and with participants.

Use powerful questions to ask if people are distracted or seem to have lost touch with the conversation. "Are you with us? Is everything ok? That way, you are putting the ownership back to the participant while showing empathy/care should something happened, distracting them or disturbing them.

Get people to share easily with a tool called Sticky Note or a timed polled cause it allows them to figuratively "voice out" despite being afraid or shy This helps fosters inclusion that really could bond them better They are afraid to share cause of the negative repercussions, hence do that first and then slowly show that there are no negative repercussions and the team will slowly move to a more honest communicator

First and foremost, understand appropriate circumstances and your individual expertise. If the situation involves sever issues that you are unequipped or not certified to handle, respectfully acknowledge that to the parties and defer to the proper authority or professionals. Having dealt with those with severe mental health or violent issues firsthand, ensuring group and individual safety is top priority. If the conflict or emotional issues presented are within the scope of your facilitation, actively listen to the issues presented, allowing for both/all parties to felt heard and considered before making any suggestions or taking any action. Participant issues will often deescalate as they articulate and add perspective.

If faced with conflict or emotions, it is important to demonstrate active listening but doing so in a constructive way. I would ask the participant to suggest a different solution, to contribute to a way forward so that the conflict is turned into something constructive.

Safe space means being able to express, being able to express is not so much about pointing at what others did but in general how you feel about a certain incident Hence as a leader, and in my experience With a safer space also mean more honest feedbacks and emotions but with that knowing how to navigate (not manage) is important So knowing how to redirect the facilitation to instead of Person A expressing about Person B, into Person A express about the habit that was shown by Person B the habit, the challenge, the issue, the problem is clearer to address and navigate never the person cause; it is not me, it is not you, it is the problem that we are solving

A failure to provide follow-up and feedback creates 3 negative issues: 1, feeling that their time or participation was wasted, 2, depriving the participants the potential to reflect or review the facilitation process 3, depriving the safe space potential opportunities to respond to new challenges or grow to better facilitate the needs and wants of its participants

Implement! Even if its 1% Your people will love you more. Because from my experience, despite in the facilitation or brainstorming or feedback session that was conducted regardless of the number of times having a follow through and making sure things are implement is far more important in the eyes of your team! Hence pull through and try atleast to make 1% happen for them

The best way to create a safe space during facilitation is to know your audience AND the reason for the meeting. For example, if you're brought in as a facilitator on a topic that the entire group might disagree with or the group feels "punished" to attend (sometimes leaders order up meetings or training to "fix" rather than educate), people definitely won't feel safe to engage - and they won't. I've walked into meetings where the big pink elephant in the room ended up even larger because people felt the meeting was their punishment. Here's the thing: If people don't feel safe in a meeting, there's a much larger issue. Knowledge of the WHY of the meeting is crucial, then safety can be coached along the way as communication opens throughout