Group Facilitation: Embracing the Art and Value of Being Disappointing

Join us for an insightful and candid dialogue between Beverley Costa from the Pásalo Project and John Wilson of Onlinevents as they explore the provocative idea of embracing disappointment in group facilitation.

This conversation will delve into the complexities of managing expectations in group settings and the inevitability of sometimes disappointing group members. Beverley and John will examine how the fear of disappointment can shape a facilitator’s approach, and how moments of unmet expectations, when embraced, can lead to richer group dynamics and personal growth for all involved.

Key themes in this dialogue include:

• The emotional and relational challenges of being a "disappointing" facilitator.
• The role of authenticity, transparency, and boundaries in managing group expectations.
• How disappointment can open the door to deeper connection, learning, and resilience within the group.

Beverley and John will also share reflections on their experiences as group participants and how their ideas about disappointment manifest in their own practices as facilitators. They’ll consider how the willingness to disappoint others, in service of the group’s process, can foster genuine engagement and meaningful transformation.

Whether you are new to group facilitation or a seasoned practitioner, this event invites you to rethink the value of imperfection and the powerful opportunities that arise when facilitators and group members alike learn to sit with disappointment.

This workshop will be recorded and you can use the ticket function to pre-purchase the recording before the event. This will be useful for colleagues who are not able to attend the event live and also for those who attend the event live and want to watch it again.

This workshop will be hosted on the Zoom meeting platform where we will use our cameras and microphones to interact with each other as a group.

The self-select fee is a radical inclusion policy to open learning for all colleagues. The guide price for this event is £20.00, however, we appreciate that income varies greatly in different locations and circumstances. Please contribute what you can to help us maintain inclusive professional training.

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All the colleagues at ONLINEVENTS and the presenters we collaborate with are committed to working in a manner consistent with the BACP Ethical Framework, which can be accessed on the link below. When registering for this event you are agreeing to be present and interact in a manner that is consistent with this Framework.

https://www.bacp.co.uk/events-and-resources/ethics-and-standards/ethical-framework-for-the-counselling-professions/

After qualifying as a psychotherapist, Beverley Costa set up Mothertongue multi-ethnic counselling service (2000-2018) for multilingual clients. In 2009 she created a pool of mental health interpreters, in 2010 she established the national Bilingual Therapist and Mental Health Interpreter Forum and founded The Pásalo Project in 2017 www.pasaloproject.org to disseminate learning from Mothertongue.

She has trained over 5,000 therapists for NHS services and NGOs, in working therapeutically across languages and with interpreters since 2013. She is a Senior Practitioner Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London and in 2023 she was granted the title Senior Visiting Research Fellow in the School of Arts and Communication Design at the University of Reading.

She has run Reflective Practice Support groups for interpreters, psychological therapists and counsellors, nurses, teachers, lawyers, and psychosocial workers. She has developed an introductory course in facilitator skills for running Reflective Practice Groups which has been delivered online to organisations in England, Scotland and Wales. She is the author of Other Tongues -psychological therapies in a multilingual world https://tinyurl.com/Other-Tongues

I have been facilitating in Counselling & Psychotherapy programmes in the UK for more than 10 years.

I am currently the director at Temenos Education and have a private practice where I offer online Psychotherapy and Supervision using video and chat communication platforms along with virtual environments. I am also the co-founder of onlinevents which has grown to be the world’s largest library of online video and audio content with instant certification and a learning log.

I am also a past chair of the Association for Counselling & Therapy Online (ACTO) and have served for 6 years on the board of the World Association for Person Centered & Experiential Psychotherapy & Counselling. My passion to bring online learning into the field of Counselling & Psychotherapy has also led to the development of online experiential learning within the Temenos programme, facilitating the exposure of Temenos students to external tutors who are located in different parts of the world. Along with the inclusion of experiential learning of online Counselling & Psychotherapy for Temenos students so that they qualify with knowledge and practice in online communication and relationship.

You can read an article I co-authored about online group facilitation here:

https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/UB2QJDKNCGUMUNUURU8W/full?target=10.1080/14779757.2019.1650807

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