Running A Group
Good facilitation is at the heart of Carbon Conversations. The groups deal with people’s distress about climate change and with both their creativity and their resistances about making carbon reductions. This means that the groups are best facilitated by people with therapeutic group experience and/or professional training in group facilitation. Groups can be facilitated by people without this experience but these facilitators will need good support and mentoring in order to do this successfully. There is no officially recognised training for Carbon Conversations although some people who previously worked with the project may offer this. The most important factor in running a Carbon Conversations group is that you have the therapeutic/facilitator experience that will enable you to do so successfully.
Groups usually meet for between 6 and 12 times, exploring
the four key aspects of a personal carbon footprint – home energy, travel, food
and other consumption – and discussing their feelings about climate change,
carbon reduction and the impact on relationships with family, friends and
colleagues of taking climate change seriously. We advise that the group should
consist of 6-8 people who are able to commit to attending all the meetings and
that it should be co-facilitated. The need for a good mix of facilitation and technical
expertise makes co-facilitation particularly important. This is all described in detail in the downloadable Facilitator’s Guide.
While the small-group method can be easily adapted to other
countries, the materials were designed for use in the UK and their technical
content is all UK specific. To make life easier for people overseas who wish to
use Carbon Conversations we have produced an international version of In Time for Tomorrow? in which all the
UK-specific content has been removed. This can be translated if necessary and
used alongside technical information for your location or you can create your
own country-specific edition of In Time
for Tomorrow? incorporating your own technical material, alongside personal
testimonies for your country.
