Culturally Informed Facilitation Training Part II: Building Understanding of Identity and Power Dynamics

The purpose of the session was to strengthen our facilitation practices, and our abilities to serve diverse clients, and collaborative processes, across cultural and power differences.

We met at the Creekside Community Centre in the neighborhood now known as False Creek. This gathering place is located on the lands of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples, who have lived here for thousands of years. We began our session reflecting on the immense rapid losses that have occurred through colonisation. False Creek once teemed with ecological abundance – the Salish people had a saying, “when the tide went out, the table was set.”

In this session, we had the expertise and support of facilitation team Natasha Aruliah and Lynda Gerty, who provided training in culturally informed facilitation approaches. We greatly appreciated the perspective and experience they shared. Together, Natasha and Lynda helped us explore dialogue and topics that are often avoided and considered taboo and challenging (learn more about Natasha and Lynda on Linkedin profiles!).

Our afternoon consisted of a combination of individual reflection time, pair share conversations, and group debrief and dialogue. These reflections were part of the continued work of exploring our identities and developing greater self-awareness around how these identities and positionality impact our facilitation practice. Through dialogue, we continued to deepen our awareness around power dynamics and related tensions in group settings and dialogues. This session strengthened our abilities to create a culturally informed and inclusive container for dialogue and learning.

Recognizing that we have much more to reflect on, and discover, this session was a powerful exercise in helping us better serve the diverse groups and multi-party processes that we facilitate. We look forward to continuing to build our skills set and cross-cultural fluency!