How to Build a Group: What Needs to Happen Before Session One

A 60-Minute Dialogue with Beverley Costa and John Wilson

What happens before the first word is spoken in a group? How do we prepare ourselves and our participants so that the opening “hello” has a solid foundation?

In this conversation, Beverley Costa and John Wilson will explore the often-unseen steps that shape the success of a group before it even begins.

Together, they’ll reflect on:

• How our choices — from whether we screen to how we invite — influence who joins.
• When a group might need a gentle warm-up process, and when it’s ready for robust challenge.
• The theory of group life: is it about cohesion and kindness alone, or coherency that also allows for challenge?
• The practicalities: administration, travel, self-care, communication and information-sharing, and the psychological preparation of the facilitator.
• That crucial opening moment: what do we actually say after hello?

We’ll start with everything that goes into building a group before the first session begins. Time allowing, we’ll also touch on how to frame those opening minutes together. If the conversation raises more questions than we can cover, we plan to continue this dialogue in a future session.

This workshop is part of our ongoing series on facilitating groups and is open to colleagues interested in convening groups of their own. Toward the end of the hour, we’ll open the chat so participants can share reflections, experiences, and questions.As Beverley and John remind us, the richest conversations often generate more questions than answers.

Who is This Workshop Appropriate For?

• People facilitating or wanting to facilitate groups.

How May This Workshop Impact Your Practice?

• It will build participants' confidence to facilitate groups.

RECORDING 

This event 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.

ZOOM 

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

SELF-SELECT FEE

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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At Onlinevents, we and the presenters we collaborate with are committed to working in a way that aligns with the ethical codes and frameworks of our respective professional organisations. We expect all colleagues attending our events to uphold the ethical principles of their professional membership.

If you are not a member of a professional organisation, we ask that you participate in a way that is both authentic and respectful, fostering a space of mutual learning and professional engagement.

By registering for this event, you agree to be present and interact in a manner that reflects these principles.

Beverley Costa

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 a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Reading.

In 2020, Pásalo created an e-learning resource for the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy: The Social Response Cycle - about effective therapeutically framed social action.https://www.bacp.co.uk/cpd/social-response-cycle-member-resource/In the same year (2020), The Paul Hamlyn Foundation awarded The Pásalo Project funding through its Ideas and Pioneers programme to create a free e-learning resource on mental health and multilingualism https://www.pasaloproject.org/multilingualism-mental-health-and-psychological-therapy---course-content.html.

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, Wales and Belgium. She is the author of Other Tongues -psychological therapies in a multilingual world https://tinyurl.com/Other-Tongues

Website | www.pasaloproject.org