Facilitator Preparation Program

The Courage & Renewal Facilitator Preparation Programis a two-year leadership and mentoring program for preparing facilitators to lead retreats and other programs based on the principles & practices of the Circle of Trust® approach. The Center for Courage & Renewal carefully prepares facilitators who have the qualities, capacities and skills required to hold and guide a process that allows people to engage their deepest hopes and fears in a community of shared exploration. The Center prepares facilitators to do in-depth work with all persons who wish to live and work more wholeheartedly and to act with courage and integrity. We also welcome facilitators who wish to work specifically in serving professions such as education, healthcare, law, religious life, and non-profit and community leadership.

In addition to planning and facilitating retreats, the facilitator plays a crucial role in introducing and establishing this approach in their community. Once prepared, facilitators find ways to create institutional and/or community partnerships from which to “grow” this work (i.e. they do not “work” for the Center). Thus, being a Courage & Renewal facilitator combines leadership and facilitation with responsibility for program development in the facilitator’s community or profession. Once an individual is accepted into the Facilitator Preparation Program s/he also joins other Circle of Trust facilitators around the U.S., in Canada and Australia in a network called the Courage Collaboration. The Courage Collaboration is a resource and leadership-rich group that operates as a community of learning and practice with and for each other.

Steps To Becoming A Courage & Renewal Facilitator

The facilitator’s role in a circle of trust is easily defined: to be first among equals in creating and protecting a space where everyone’s soul can feel safe. But that role is not so easily played. It requires grounding, training, mentoring and experience.

Deeper still, a facilitator must understand the solemn responsibility that accompanies a work in which people are invited to make their souls vulnerable and promised that they will be done no harm.

—Parker J. Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life

North American Facilitator Preparation Program

  1. Prior experience with Courage & Renewal retreats: We have found that the more personal experience of this approach that a potential facilitator has, the better. Those interested in becoming facilitators will ideally have attended two or more Courage & Renewal retreats. See the list of upcoming retreats.

  2. Attendance at a Gateway Retreat for potential facilitators. The next Gateway Retreat will be held October 24-27, 2013. Download this PDF flyer and application for more details about the Gateway retreat. Applications are due July 1, 2013. You can also download this Gateway Retreat Application to fill out (a Word doc).

  3. Apply for the 2014-2015 Facilitator Preparation Program. Download this Facilitator Preparation Application to fill out (a Word doc).

  4. If selected, participation in two 5-day facilitator preparation retreats, a year of mentoring with an experienced facilitator, and participation in an ongoing community of practice with cohort members and mentor facilitators.

Australasian Facilitator Preparation Program

Steps toward enrollment in this program are the same as above. For more information about the Australasian Gateway Retreat, Brisbane, Australia from August 15-18, 2013, download this PDF flyer and application. Applications are due May 1, 2013. You can also download this Word doc Application to fill out.

Also see our web page for Australasian facilitators.