Are you inspired to lead and collaborate in a way that rises to the challenges and opportunities of our 21st century reality? Do you believe that achieving your own professional goals shouldn’t be at odds with the joy and potential that your teammates naturally possess? Efficiency and authenticity don’t have to be mutually exclusive. The Mindful Meetings Method will show you how.
Feeling like your well designed agendas sometimes end up devolving into unproductive cul-de-sacs of conversation without resolution? Mindful Meetings offers helpful scaffolds to get the work done with efficient road maps built together with your team.
Seeking to inspire connection and collaboration? The new hybrid reality means some of us are back to in-person and some of us are still remote. This creates challenges and opportunities to facilitate spaces for connection. Mindful Meetings will show you how.
Have you wondered how to bring your entire self to your facilitation? You are a stronger leader when you lead with vulnerability and authenticity. Mindful Meetings offers empowering frameworks for you to do so.
After years of testing and iterating our unique training offerings for facilitators live and online, we are delighted to offer this innovative and transformative program. Designed in collaboration with the crew at Swell and the community of facilitators around the world, the 5-step Mindful Meetings Method course is the first step on the path to becoming a Swell certified facilitator, and it is powerful all on its own.
Many of us find ourselves inspired to be of service as facilitators of group process, restorative accountability, and engaging training. Facilitation, while desperately needed in these times of conflict and global crises, has yet to be fully distinguished as the unique art and science that it is. Many of us called to this leadership role either inside of organizations, or externally as consultants, have been largely self-taught or mentored without any formalized learning paths or communities of practice. For facilitators representing historically marginalized identities, trusted mentors, who understand our unique cultural needs and super powers, can be hard to find.
Over the course of thousands of hours designing and facilitating collaborative experiences and decision making, I have had the opportunity to learn alongside masters of the art and science of facilitation. I have watched in awe as conflict has been transformed into deepened trust and creative innovation. As a woman of color, I deeply understand the nuance of navigating our own identities in service to this work while at the same time developing practices of self and community-care that allow me to continue to show up as my best self in this work. I also am a self described “geek” and I have discovered the best technology to scale our work across the confines of time and geography.
Facilitators of effective collaboration are in high demand in communities and industries around the world. I am so excited to grow this community of practice with you so we can discover joy and creativity at the intersections of our differences and together, offer the spaces of community building our world desperately needs.
Design and facilitate meetings that are grounded in equity and help groups achieve their goals. Our 5-step method is applicable to any meeting, online or off.
The Mindful Meetings course has 7 modules of 25 bite-sized lessons. Each lesson is short and impactful to make it easy to move through the course at your own pace when it is convenient for you. The course is also optimized for mobile so you can learn on the go!
Each module contains materials with creative commons licensing allowing you the flexibility to refine the template for your own practice.
The Facilitators Academy is a global community of change agents shaping the field of facilitation to center equity, honor diversity, and transform the world. Enrollment in Mindful Meetings gets you access to the Slack community and a live peer coaching session to up-level your practice.
The Facilitators Academy was a very invigorating experience and helped reorient my life when I needed it. I appreciate the manner that Emily as well as the team facilitated such a wonderful space. It encouraged me to come out of my shell and roar as a lion :]
Restorative & Transformative justice practitioner
Your community, your organization, and the world need you now more than ever. If you are inspired to be a facilitative leader, Mindful Meetings is a powerful collection of tools. Now is the time to hone the skills the world so desperately needs to meet this moment. This work can be grueling even as it is deeply rewarding. Being on this journey, in community with others doing the same, is powerful self-care that every impactful leader needs.
I learned so much from the Facilitators Academy – it wasn’t only about facilitation tools (although we learned a lot about those!) – it was really about holding a gentle space for people to bring forward their most authentic selves (even in these awkward Zoom spaces). In these days when the world gives us so much reason to feel rage, despair, and grief, holding gentle space is a critical skill. People can feel all those challenging feelings *and* get in touch with sources of joy and hope. Being in the “room” with the main facilitator, Emily Gonzales was a revelation. I felt as if a more communitarian future were being manifested before my eyes.
COMMUNITY ORGANIZER
Have you ever wondered how it is all connected? By embarking on the Facilitators Academy journey, you will better understand how your calling is so much of exactly what is needed at this historical moment. Grounded in this knowledge, you will have the confidence to offer your insight to more groups and communities. Say goodbye to “imposter syndrome”.
Sometimes we are so busy ‘doing’ the facilitation, we don’t get the necessary time to simply work on our skills. After the Facilitators Academy, you will have new and improved skills that will exponentially impact your effectiveness with the communities you serve.
Life since 2020 has taught the world just how essential the technology is that allows remote meetings and collaboration. We have built trusted relationships with the makers of some of the field’s most essential and innovative digital tools for facilitators. Facilitators Academy will give you insight and access to the leading edge of this technology and time to test it yourself.
The Facilitators Academy community is the only one of its kind, bringing together facilitators in private practice and from within organizations. We also regularly invite elders, scholars, and practitioners of note to be in community along side us. Find the peer coaching and support you need within the Facilitators Academy community of practice.
The Facilitators Academy has amassed hundreds of templates and tools with real world tips and tricks from facilitators themselves. Borrow and share with your peers what really works to build community and make decisions rooted in equity.
Our crew monitors the academic journals and popular press for the latest insights into the interdisciplinary field of facilitation. We analyze and summarize these findings into regular digests so our community can keep a finger on the pulse of the field.
Swell Collective’s Facilitators Academy was a transformative and pivotal experience for me. The curriculum is drawn from lead instructor Emily Gonzales’s many decades of hands-on positive-sum facilitation experience, coupled with a rich and ever-expanding library of books, articles, videos, blog-posts and more – all produced by thought leaders in the facilitation and allied spaces. In addition, the many wonderful activities at the heart of the training drove home the key insights needed to take one’s consensus-building skills to the next level, while providing real hands-on experience with the work. I would strongly recommend to anyone considering a facilitation role to place attendance at the Academy at the top of their list.
CEO in Technology
As soon as you purchase, you can begin the course. And you will have access to the lessons and periodic updates for life!
The course is delivered via ‘asynchronous’ modules here on the site that you do independently. The modules are broken down into bite-sized video lessons that you can easily complete when you have the time. You will also receive regular email reminders to help you move through the course. You can opt out of these at any time.
Absolutely! If you get through three lessons and find that the course just isn’t what you need, we would be happy to refund you. We trust you won’t use materials you didn’t pay for.
Our course instructors and facilitators hold regular office hours for curriculum and technology support. We also have a dedicated #slack space where there is a thriving Facilitators Academy community. We are all dedicated to your success.
