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MDR: Action Learning Sets

Following your Review Meeting Rachel Williams at Church House will allocate you to an Action Learning Set which will meet three times, at four-six week intervals. The Facilitator for your Action Learning Set will not be the same person who facilitated your Review Meeting but will have received a copy of your Part 1 Development Plan.

 

The Action Learning Set

The Action Learning Set is a small group of roughly five members who will work together on their chosen areas for development. The members of the group will listen to and support their colleagues, helping them to explore and decide on courses of action through questions, discussion and the sharing of experience.  

 

The Set should be a place where members feel safe to express their learning needs and where each member can decide on the right course of action for them.  There needs to be trust, openness and total confidentiality between the members, with respect for silences and the ability to listen for what is not said as well as what is said.   

Time will be dedicated by the group to each member of the Set and their needs.  A Set will meet three times and action points will be agreed at each meeting.  At the conclusion of the three meetings, a Part 2 Development Plan will have been completed.

   

Why Action Learning? 

Participants will have the opportunity:

  • to learn from each other and learn with each other
  • to receive support for innovation and change
  • for reflection on areas for development and encouraging action
  • to highlight areas where they have special interest, strengths or challenges
  • to deal with issues and development needs which cannot easily be addressed through training courses
  • to build strong relationships and support networks
  • to produce an Action Plan to put into practice

Three Stages to an Action Learning Set

These are usually:

    1. listening, identifying and clarifying issues around a developmental need or action
    2. listing possible actions
    3. selecting specific actions to pursue

The Role of the Facilitator

  • to assist the group to set up explicit ground rules, including the allocation of time and confidentiality, and to provide support at meetings
  • to invite a member of the Set to talk about a developmental need they wish to pursue
  • to assist the member to reflect before other members of the Set put their questions
  • to help members of a Set to resist giving advice or making judgements
  • to ask the member to summarise and commit to actions they might take when they have had sufficient time to reflect
  • to provide for members of a Set to offer encouragement and support, and any significant information they might have to offer, before moving onto the next member of the Set
  • to remind members that, at the next meeting, they will be reporting and reflecting on the progress they have made
  • to sign off the Part 2 Development Plans

 

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