Facilitation Services

I have 25+ years experience offeringcreative facilitation services to support groups achieve their objectives.  I currently offer:

  • arts-based facilitation, and
  • cultural mapping.
City of Moreton Bay: creative communities consultation to help inform the Cultural Policy

Idea project phases

These facilitation methods are exploratory and are ideal in the following situations and project phases:

  • visioning
  • gathering local knowledge 
  • identifying local values
  • exploring community responses to potential programs
  • engaging community members in redesigning local assets such as parks and public spaces.

 

Children Helping Children Heal project – video thumbnails

Facilitation services examples

Open-ended, arts-based exploration

I work closely with project owners to determine the best means of engaging a focus community to gather the input needed. Working within the parameters of the project, I develop an open-ended and hands-on process that allows people to enter into exploration of the topic, without feeling judged, shamed or incompetent. This can be a big inhibitor in Australia, where many people feel they aren’t ‘experts’ and don’t perceive that they do actually have the expertise of local knowledge and understanding their local system.

Examples include:

  • Children Helping Children Heal project: working alongside specialists in Domestic and Family Violence Prevention, I engaged with mothers and their children to explore safety and wellbeing in the context of transitioning out of violence. I developed four workshops at which the children were supported to explore themes through conversation and hands-on art processes. I then used their outputs to develop a video that was then translated to various languages. As part of the finalisation process, the children were invited to give feedback to improve the draft video and ensure it captured their ideas accurately.
  • City of Moreton Bay’s Cultural Policy: I was contracted to work alongside fellow creative, Emma Che Rathke to support residents to explore their current and anticipated future experiences in Galleries, Libraries, Museums and activations in public spaces. The objective of the engagement was to understand how people interacted with these spaces, and what might encourage them to increase participation and visitation. We developed a concept of using dolls-house sized venues that people could ‘dress’ with their ideas, allowing them to engage in an imaginative process at a level where they felt comfortable and in control. We encouraged and listened, using open ended questioning to explore their ideas as they playfully interacted with the props.
artbalm facilitation. Rachel Apelt facilitation. Arts-based engagement
Disability Royal Commission Lived Experience quilt
  • Disability Royal Commission: community consultation with CALD and Refugee women experiencing psychosocial disabilities and with lived experience of violence. I was contracted to work closely with a specialist team from IWSS, Amparo and QPASTT to devise a culturally and trauma-sensitive workshop to gather priority themes and depict these in a graphic recording and group artwork. The workshop was limited in time and needed to cater for women with varied arts and craft experience. The output needed to be flexible enough to be folded into a suitcase for showing interstate at a hearing.

Facilitation Services Accreditation

I am IAP2 accredited (International Association for Public Participation) and have completed both the International and Australasian Certificates in Engagement. I worked as the Senior Program Officer for Brisbane City Council’s Community Engagement Centre of Excellence for six years and I am part of the Australasian Facilitation Network community.

Contact me:

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