KNOTTY GROUPS

(formerly Creative Interventions)

Led by highly seasoned facilitator and trainer Nadia Chaney (nadiachaney.com), this series is designed especially for community service workers who want to learn creative yet practical methods for high stakes facilitation with vulnerable populations. Nadia's focus is on developing ease of use with simple, flexible models, so facilitators can be as present as possible with their groups while employing tools that have been extensively tested. It will also be very relevant to teachers, NGO managers, group therapists, homeschoolers, coaches (life and sports) and anyone else who finds themselves in sticky situations when leading groups.​

This training does not cover the basics of facilitation but Nadia’s companion online training platform, Toolsi, will provide beginners with that background information. Knotty Groups is designed for facilitators at any level, but will not cover things like leading check-ins, room set up, debriefing etc.

Online group sessions: seven three hour sessions (two fifteen minute breaks). These sessions will be recorded. They will be provided to participants for review and added to Toolsi (participants will be anonymized and sensitive material deleted).

Toolsi video training sessions: Fourteen courses, 70 tried and tested activities, 28 podcasts with worksheets, a community discussion forum…and more. Nadia will provide the links to the sections of Toolsi most important for this training. Participants can expect to watch 10-20 minutes of video before each session. Lifetime membership to Toolsi is included in the course fee.

Peer coaching practice: between sessions participants will do a one hour peer coaching call with another member of the group. There will be specific guidelines for this. It will help you contextualize the material for your own facilitation practice.

Alumni Pop Ups! Participants from Cohort 1 will join us in the sessions, and lead extra popup sessions for you. 

One on one coaching sessions: Nadia can do one on one sessions to help translate the trainings to specific work environments for an additional fee.

General Outline of Seven 3-hour Workshops

  1. community building and personal leadership power

    • building a group field

    • the complexity of personal power

    • what are the specific aspects of my power

  2. strength-based facilitation

    • unearthing resources and affordances

    • supporting healthy redirection

    • working with resistance

  3. very brief coaching relationships

    • how to work with strong emotion in a professional setting

    • developing resilience 

    • building the foundation for anti-oppression

  4. voice and power in transformative learning

    1. the tension and release of transformative learning

    2. consentfulness and the care scale

    3. entertaining simultaneous truths

  5. interrupting a speaker

    1. development and use of analytical frameworks

    2. how to interrupt a speaker without breaking the bond

  6. callouts, call-ins, and feedback

    1. the art of receiving feedback - no matter the source

    2. emotional labour and microaggressions

    3. welcoming transformation towards resilience and joy

  7. find your style 

    1. what is methodology

    2. your facilitation landscape and values

    3. next steps

To learn more about my training style, you can take this free email course on Strength-Based facilitation.

Cost

I would like to offer the trainings for $1200 CAD for all seven sessions. If you miss a session there will be a recording, and if you watch the entire recording I will do a one hour make up call with you. Cost includes lifetime use of Toolsi training platform.

NOTE: the cost does not include 13% sales tax required by the Canadian government.

 

If the cost is prohibitive PLEASE reach out, especially if you are a community service worker. We can work out a trade or sliding scale. If you have access to funds that could support other participants, please feel free to pay a little more!.

Full refunds are okay until one month before training begins, half refunds until two week prior
Additional one on one sessions are $150 CAD/hour.
Payments can be made by paypal, etransfer, or credit card (international bank transfer or western union can be arranged)

2024 Fall Cohort Dates and Times

Sept 18 2024  16:00 CET - 19:00 CET

Oct 2 2024  16:00 CET - 19:00 CET

Oct 16 2024 16:00 CET - 19:00 CET

Oct 30 2024 16:00 CET - 19:00 CET

Nov 13 2024 16:00 CET - 19:00 CET

Nov 27 2024 16:00 CET - 19:00 CET

Dec 11 2024 16:00 CET - 19:00 CET


Office Hours (I will be available for one hour on the in between weeks to support understanding, help with case studies and application of the material to your particular context, and to help catch up if you miss a session. I will set these dates closer to the start date, depending on my travel schedule).


POP UP sessions: There will be pop up session led by previous Knotty Groups participants! These are optional, and the two we did last round were awesome.

Testimonials from Cohorts 1 and 2

Shruti, coach, educator and facilitator:

Nadia is a masterful facilitator in enabling empowerment and transformation of individuals and groups. This course was extremely engaging and insightful. It gave me new tools, challenged and broadened my understanding of what it means to facilitate groups, it highlighted blind spots in my practice and left me feeling more empowered and excited to move forward in my work. I am deeply grateful for Nadia's wisdom, generosity, passion and commitment to this work.

Aslam, facilitator and community engagement specialist:

I'm sometimes asked for Facilitation Training recommendations and there are some good ones out there but my most recent experience doing the Advanced "Knotty Groups" Facilitation Training with Nadia Chaney was a truly memorable experience. The cohort I got to learn with, the variety of teaching methodologies, and her decades of facilitation experience all made it a lovely and worthwhile experience. The biggest learning for me was going deeper into the critical part of myself and asking how I can be more caring to myself and others.

Part of the course included access to Toolsi, her huge facilitation resource library that she broke off into digestible chunks throughout the program. Worth accessing on its own if you've puzzled over some common facilitation issues (the Orange Model of giving and receiving feedback has already become incorporated into my personal and professional life). https://lnkd.in/gBbj3bCY

 

Pom, artist and community leader:

I am deeply grateful for Nadia's expertise in facilitating group dynamics, which has created a healthier and more comfortable environment where everyone feels heard. Her guidance has sparked significant positive changes back home, leading us to become healthier, more compassionate individuals.

Elena, Youth Mentor:

Knotty Groups helped me reconnect with creative practice in a way that was a surprising and wonderful gift, not just for my work, but also for my spirit. 

Marlo, facilitator and community organizer

I am immensely grateful for the magic and vulnerability that was present in this knotty cohort space. I am relieved to have the recordings to return to for future reflections and learning.

Elis, facilitator and experience designer:

For the past 2-3 years I had been looking for a space to further develop my facilitation practice and was about to give up finding something that really suited where I am in my development journey and my needs in terms of who I want to learn from and with. I needed a space, a group and a facilitator that could both hold and challenge me; that would help me look deeper inside of myself while also seeing and sharing with others who come for lived experienced and journeys very different from mine; I needed to be in a space where I could both further explore power dynamics in groups, and practice very concrete tools; and, I didn't know it beforehand, but I also needed a place where I could meet some truly amazing humans. It's still hard to believe that I found all of that in the Knotty Groups, so beautifully held by Nadia. I'm so grateful for this experience - and I haven't even mentioned the really impactful content I found on Toolsi (anyone who has talked to me in the past months has heard me recommend it)!

Natalie, university professor:

Knotty Groups involved 7 online three-hour trainings sessions, a weekly peer group practice session, and I also signed up for 1-1 sessions. Our skilled facilitator Nadia Chaney supported our intimate group to cover some intense content and learn new much-needed skills for creating and holding spaces that can engage difficult conversations, but more importantly, uphold the dignity of all participants even while engaging conflict. Some of the topics and skills we covered included: community building, personal leadership, strength-based facilitation, supporting healthy redirection, working with resistance, how to work with strong emotions, developing resilience, building the foundation for anti-oppression, the tension and release of transformative learning, consentfulness and care, entertaining simultaneous truths, emotional labour, interrupting a speaker without breaking the bond, and more. This training has transformed my teaching practice! 

Nadia skillfully supported me to be able to clearly recognize and articulate some patterns in my teaching approach, including some dynamics that I had not fully understood before that were causing me to feel burned out by the end of each semester. I clearly recall how the first few weeks of training were characterized by my resistance to the idea of welcoming “disruptors”, “resistors” or conflict in my communities of learning. Throughout the training, Nadia enabled me to see conflict as a site of transformation, and I have been introduced to skills and tools that I can lean on as I develop more experience and confidence in being more open to and curious about divisive perspectives that may emerge in my classroom environment. 

I knew this training had really transformed my thinking by Week 2 of Fall 2023 when a student directly asked me how I navigate “disagreement” opposing ideas in my course. Instead of being anxious, I found myself engaging some of my new tools, and I felt a sense of deep curiosity about what lay beneath the question and to explore strengths-based responses.