Facilitate is an innovative national training programme for writers with an emerging facilitation practice. Its aim is to support writers and performers who wish to work as writing facilitators with young people (aged 25 years or younger) in education and community settings.

Over the course of six months, the programme will establish a peer-supporting cohort of diverse writing-facilitator talent who, with some mentoring, would be able to start delivering workshops in these contexts.

This is a pilot project funded by the Garrick Charitable Trust and Facilitate founding partners: First Story, New Writing North, Apples and Snakes and the Royal Literary Fund. Places are limited and application is by invitation only.

What’s included?

A series of six units, of up to two hours each, delivered by writer-facilitators and literature organisation staff. Sessions will take place online via Zoom and will run from 6.30-8.30pm. You will cover:

Thu 7 Nov: Introduction to freelance working
Thu 28 Nov: Partnership working in education and community settings
Thu 12 Dec: Planning and delivering a workshop
Thu 23 Jan: Delivering workshops to groups
Thu 20 Feb: Getting the most from mentoring/shadowing
Thu 20 Mar: Specialist session – this session will address a specific interest/need of the cohort

Sessions will be delivered online by professional writers with significant experience of writing facilitation with young people and/or expertise in the specific subject area of the unit(s) they deliver.

Participants attending will be paid a bursary of £75 per session.

Who is it for?

Aspiring early to mid-career writer-practitioners who are interested in, but have little to no experience of, working with young people in education and community settings.

We are particularly looking to support the continuous professional development of those who are currently under-represented in the workforce.

Apply:

Invited applicants are asked to complete the short application form below and submit an anonymous Diversity and Inclusion Monitoring form. We will endeavour to confirm participant places and session dates by mid-October.

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