Nadia Chaney has been a friend of mine since 2002. I have always known her to celebrate knowledge. She is constantly stretching her ability to express complex ideas creatively and does so with compellingly catalytic dynamism.

Naomi Steinberg, professional storyteller, Vancouver, BC, Canada

I have no hesitation in saying the Nadia Chaney is one of the top international facilitators. I have seen the incredible ripple effects her work has had on communities globally. She is a sharp critical thinker, an excellent trainer, a caring soul and a vibrant creative facilitator.

Ella Cooper, facilitator, film maker, artist, Toronto, Canada

Nadia Chaney's ability to work from a place of compassion and non-judgment stems from the unique position of an activist dedicated to this moment lived as facilitator, mentor, and poet.

Her commitment to deep listening and desire to see strengths where others see weakness help her guide groups or individuals powerfully through challenging questions and towards well-informed answers. When discovering unexpected results or impact, her flexible stance and healing sense of humor help shift confusion into transformation. I highly recommend Nadia's services to anyone looking for a mentor on a path towards change.

Through a four week one-on-one mentorship in community arts, Nadia helped me towards a place of strength, love, and transformation that in the end, felt wholly mine.

Barb Danielewski, social artist, Kingston, ON, Canada

Nadia is a dynamic and compassionate trainer. I used to feel overwhelmed and confused when facilitating groups, but since working with her I am now able to facilitate with more confidence and skill.

Doug Blessington, social worker at Hope for the Future Asheville, North Carolina

Nadia walked into my life at a time when I felt insecure, vulnerable, and afraid. I was engaging in art and community development but was so afraid of doing it wrong that I stayed on the sidelines and was often too shy and afraid to reach my toes into the circle. Nadia encouraged me, she included me, she invited me. Years later, I am now a full-time community organizer, and I continue to look up to her to this day as a truth speaker. She is a rare human, with a gift of balancing curiosity, play, depth, and kindness all in a single moment.

Laura June, co-director, Luciterra, Vancouver, BC, Canada

I deeply enjoyed studying you as a facilitator.  I can see how your talent and skills blend so beautifully together.  You have given me a tangible, visceral reference for what my version of blending my talent and skills can look and feel like.

Ella Cooper, facilitator, film maker, artist, Toronto, Canada

Through her facilitation, Nadia takes you on a journey to your internal home by creating and containing a safe space for you to converse with- interact with- and become- your creative spirit. When holding the space, Nadia gives way for creative expression, allowing for personal growth and transformation. If you are looking for ways to connect with yourself and others through facilitated creative workshops; if you are not quite sure what gifts you have to offer groups; if you are looking to get in touch with your creative spirit; or become more confident in your own facilitation, Nadia can light the way for you.

As a trainer, Nadia has taught me the many depths required to be a good facilitator.  I used to struggle with gaining the attention of my teenage group, but Nadia taught me that holding attention is not always about a loud voice. I learned that developing personal presence is far more powerful. Since developing this,  I have gained more confidence in facilitation.  I'm impressed with Nadia's ability to really engage with a large group. People listen when she speaks. I think it’s her ability to really connect with every single person in the room that makes the difference.

Nadia is an ace facilitator. Warm heart, bright mind, inspiring, incisive, fun and creative. Her deep well of knowledge and experience combined with well-honed intuition and a vision for the best in a group ensure a great experience every time. Having worked with Nadia for many years I know she is the kind of leader you can completely rely on for excellent results.

Nadia is a force that once enters your life, she makes an impact hard to forget and ignore. Working with her was a real pleasure, full of valuable learnings, dialogue, and adjustable structure. I worked with Nadia over a spam of two intensive weeks where Nadia was a lead trainer of teams of new creative learning facilitators in, consecutively, Italy and Egypt in late 2016. As I work with both teams on a consistent basis, her name is mentioned on regular basis until now and lessons learned from her are incorporated into leading learning sessions with young people. For certain, she made a long-lasting positive impact on the formation of the teams as facilitators, as I know she made an impact on me.

Nadia's straightforwardness, organized thinking, with sensibility, complexity, depth of thoughts, combined with a soul of an artist and being on a continuous journey for self-improvement and reflection, her curiosity and happiness to share makes her a treasure to have on projects as she brings so much with her – she has a valuable multi-layered approach and inspires a lot of introspection and self-challenging, yet is very concrete, goal-oriented and loyal to her work and people. I definitely look forward to the next time we get a chance to work together!

Nadia is a dynamic and compassionate trainer. I used to feel overwhelmed and confused when facilitating groups, but since working with her I am now able to facilitate with more confidence and skill.

Nadia demonstrates dexterity and cultural sensitivity as a trainer and facilitator. I attended an intensive international training in group facilitation led by Nadia in Uganda and I learned as much from the relevant experiential group processes as from her presence. I left this training more confident and optimistic about my ability to work with young people from different backgrounds

Through my experience as a facilitator-in training under Nadia's lead, I can assert that Nadia has extensive experience with groups (of) youth and facili-trainees. She is able to stay present and think on her feet while wielding impeccable technical expertise. As a practicing and talented artist herself, sharing her story through beautiful words (among other mediums), Nadia models the positive impact of creative risk-taking and making art in community. Having been privy to parts of Nadia's story through various workshops and trainings, I have been deeply inspired to take my own creative risks! Nadia's work (encouraged) me (to be more) curious about my own story; and this has offered multiple levels of healing. Furthermore, Nadia has deep roots in equity and social justice work; she never fails to shed light on missing and needed perspectives. This way of being was new to me when I met Nadia. As a member of a workshop group, I observed and experienced as Nadia used techniques like affirmative inquiry and nonviolent communication to gently guide me towards a broader understanding of what it means to be a facilitator and a creative being on this Earth right now.

I have had the great pleasure of working with Nadia for much more than a decade on countless projects. I can attest to her visionary power as an educator, facilitator, and leader. Nadia has the incredible capacity to very quickly understand the unique dynamics influencing and/or enabling the individuals and groups with whom she works. This in combination with her mastery in curriculum design and group process, her sharp and holistic political and cultural analysis, her wide well of empathy, and her grounded intuition, means that any experience Nadia designs provokes transformation. She almost effortlessly generates safety while also encouraging individuals and groups to scale their learning and creative edges, unlocking possibility. Nadia brings humor, depth, honesty, and wisdom to all of her work; while embodying flexibility, innovation, and a daring belief in the implicit value of each individual with whom she works. As a co-facilitator, Nadia is a rock providing anchor in the face of even the most challenging situations.  

My workshops with Nadia were inspiring and transformative, both for me as a facilitator as well as personally. Nadia took our group to a place which not only exceeded my expectations but also stretched my imagination in terms of what is possible in a group setting. We went deep, we pushed our edges, and then we went even deeper. She was able to take the tension in the room and use it to move us to a space I never thought was possible. I simply cannot sing her praises enough.

She is a scientist, an artist and a true study of Facilitation. Nadia's depth of understanding and true embodiment of this kind of work is an inspiration to anyone who follows in these facilitation footsteps. Mix all that with a quick wit, a likable charm, and some lovely heart vibrations....and you got yourself one helluva human being!

Many people who know me would say that I rushed into facilitation work. I got in way over my head, way too quickly! Getting mentored by Nadia has been invaluable to my development as not just a facilitator, but a man walking in this world. She has a knack of being able to see the depth of what can be worked on and offers it with precise clarity and understanding. If only I could have Nadia everyday....my skills and awareness would grow....FAST!   

Warren Hooley, Lead Facilitator, IndigenEYEZ, Okanagan Valley, Canada

I was fortunate enough to experience first-hand Nadia’s expertise as a Lead Trainer on the PYE Global Art of Facilitation training in the UK during 2014.  Although I have worked as a Facilitator for the past nine years alongside adults with Learning Disabilities, Nadia’s training has breathed new life into my practice and increased my confidence no end.  Her own presence as a Facilitator really gave me something to aspire to.   

As well as being empathic and having a great deal of personal integrity, Nadia carries her training in such an inspirational and creative way.  She has an innate ability to both hold and contains the space, ensuring that all participants are included and heard what can only be described as quite exceptional attention.  I genuinely feel that Nadia comes from a place of sincere humility and unwavering authenticity and it has been my great privilege and pleasure to have been trained by her."

Ruth Shaw-Williams, Book Artist, Printmaker, Social Artist & Facilitator

Nadia Chaney is an inspiring artist, writer, social artist, and person. Her passion and commitment to her work is infectious to co-workers, co-facilitators and the groups of young people she works with. She has a unique style and mastery of walking the very fine line between the needs of each individual - and the needs of the often extremely vulnerable groups she works with. Having worked for almost twenty years in closely overlapping fields, and as an ex-student of hers in the Art of Facilitation course, I cannot recommend her more highly. She is a gift to any change-making endeavour.

Nadia is a talented and versatile facilitator with an ability for welcoming participants into a creative and potent space. She is able to hold the nuances and subtleties of group dynamics while working on multiple layers to create the conditions for meaningful change and discoveries to emerge. If you

need someone who can confidently take a group further in their process, talk to Nadia.

Thank you so much for your passion and enthusiasm. You made this training for me and inspired me to become a stronger, more empathetic facilitator. I watched you handle multiple conflicting situations and was impressed by how you managed difficult emotions and contrast within a group context. It was brilliant and I found myself trying many techniques you used, particularly leaning in instead of leaning out or deflecting.

You are clearly not only skilled and knowledgeable of the content of this training, but you believe in it and that passion is contagious. Thank you for your commitment to this good work.

Nadia was an incredible workshop facilitator and wonderful soul. My skills as a facilitator, and my interpersonal skills as a whole, have demonstrably increased since participating in the workshop led by Nadia

Adom Acheampong, Community Coordinator, East End Arts , Toronto Canada

Nadia is a dynamic facilitator who thoughtfully supports conditions for groups to have more authentic, accountable, fun and transformative experiences. She brings creativity, wit, humor, complexity and wisdom to her trainings and isn’t afraid to examine the messy, challenging, and often unspoken aspects of facilitation. Her leadership has influenced and transformed my work, personal growth, and extends into my coworkers and clients' work.

Eva Farah, Equity Consultant, Eugene, Oregon.

I can't say thank you enough, it's the gift that keeps giving. I continue to learn so much from that foundational experience and it has helped me feel a kind of openness and freedom I was looking for and am trying to create for myself in more space and places. I feel so grateful for AOF and what a facilitator magician superhero you are.  I learned so much about myself thru the space you held and it was an important catalyst for all kinds of change in my life. Thank you!

Sayyida Jaffer, social artist, Kingston, ON

You are honestly one of the most skilled facilitators I have witnessed. You have an unique ability to access the full spectrum of human emotion and experience. From laughter and joy. To daring creativity and hopeful optimism. From nurturing and loving energy. To sincere and thoughtful contemplation. From critical, challenging and ambitious drive. To a relaxed and non-performative presence. You dance between states of being that normally wouldn’t go together with remarkable ease. The space you create feels like a elegant elongation of your personality. As a participant I feel in such good hands, full of trust towards of the intention and vision of the process.

Morten Vejrup, Kaospilot, Denmark

Engaging Nadia as a facilitation coach was the best investment I could have made. Nadia coached me through the process of creating a curriculum for an online course, and provided feedback on my online facilitation. The design work with Nadia gave the course more connection with my personal experience, and more coherence among the principles, practices, and processes. I had many aha! moments working with Nadia. She has a gift for challenging assumptions, and taking thinking and ideas to a whole new level. Her supportive approach made me much more courageous in the design work and in my facilitation. Nadia is one of the most experienced facilitators I know. She is a professional, curious, focused, creative, and committed coach. It was a true gift to work with her. Without a doubt the final product is far superior to what I could have come up with on my own. 

Gwyn Wansbrough, Founder, Breakthrough Facilitation 

"Your training will have a lasting impact in this union, I just know it! We are going to discuss this being a yearly thing as well. Merging labour organizing with what we learned is so incredibly important for the labour movement. I have so much gratitude for what you do AND as an aside, think you're very cool and fun and natural and talented facilitator! Thank you for the work you do and pour yourself into!"

Tricia Robinson, AMUSE (Association of McGill University Support Employees)