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This workshop is about groups – facilitating groups, leading groups, being in groups. I am passionate about holding groups in a way that honour diversity, enable everyone to find ways to meet their own needs, and upholds social justice.

The workshop begins with talking about relationships and relational culture.

Have you ever thought about how relationships impact on our experiences of group work and of learning experiences? By this, I mean the relationship between teachers and participants, between people and the environment we are in, between each individual and other members of the group, and even the relationship between our own selves and what is happening around us.

Relational cultures and practices can be almost invisible. We grow up in our own families and other learning cultures, such as schools, and usually experience these as ‘normal’ because that’s how they are presented to us. We often can’t name what is happening, and we might not even notice some things, but these cultures are vitally important. It is through relational culture that we form our sense of our own identities and create a sense of our place and worth in the world. It is through our relational culture that we understand how to treat the world around us including the natural world. 

Yet, relational culture is not ‘natural’ or ‘normal’. There is not just one way for humans to be in relationship. Relational culture is based on a foundation of values, and created from behaviours, words and actions that express those values. It’s crucial to scratch beneath the surface to explore the values that are shaping our cultures, especially because relational culture always involve power.

I have been a facilitator and educator for over thirty years, and I describe myself as a consent-based practitioner. I co-lead Wildwise’s flagship programme, Call of the Wild, and I also work in a learning community for home educated young people aged 5-16 in Hertforshire (The Cabin and The Lodge). This is a consent-based and self-directed learning community, which means that it has a strong relational culture which differs from mainstream education. It is a community in which children, young people, and adults are genuine collaborators, all with their own power, and where all are seen as holding expertise and knowledge. It is a radical, unusual, exciting, and potentially controversial place, and it sheds light upon how relational cultures can be created differently, including when working in wild spaces.

In this workshop, you will have the opportunity to learn about the movement away from a patriarchal, ‘power over/power under’, coercive and controlling model of relational culture, to an ethical culture of relating based on mutual respect, consent, self-direction, and healthy, authentic, open and honest communication. 

During the day you will:

• Hear more details about the nature of the ‘problems’ within the conventional education system, and the real alternative that is available through consent-based practice, plus the chance for Q&A
• Work through real case studies, including some from the group, to explore how those situations and practices could be made more consent-based and more self-directed. 
• Reflect on ways to broaden our own learning to overcome the impact of our history and cultural biases, and to be able to learn what we need to, by considering who we choose as our teachers and why.
• Co-create a consent-based, self-directed learning experience for the afternoon, where you have the chance to share your own skills, experiences and questions as part of a self-directed learning community. 

During the day you will also:

• Experience opening and closing meetings and other helpful practices for consent-based culture creation.
• Develop understanding of agreement-making in community.
• Explore conflict and how it plays an important part in this relational culture. 

You are welcome to come to this workshop, whoever you are, and whatever groups you are currently involved in. Facilitator, teacher, leader. Parent, carer. Social worker or health worker. Young person. You can also bring your experience as being part of a group, going to school or college, or dreaming up some great new initiative for the future. You get the picture. All welcome. Really.