Facilitating Meetings: A Guide for Community Planning Groups (HIV Prevention)

Productive community planning group (CPG) meetings play a critical role in developing effective HIV prevention plans. Given a group’s diversity of culture and professional and personal experiences, facilitating CPG meetings can be both challenging and rewarding.

The art and science of managing meetings and group processes, facilitation involves guiding meetings and groups while using a specific set of skills and tools. Facilitators create an environment in which group members share ideas, opinions, experiences, and expertise in order to achieve a common goal. A skilled facilitator smooths the way for group members to brainstorm options, identify viable solutions, and develop and implement action plans.

The guide presents facilitation skills and tools in the order in which they most commonly occur in a meeting. Nevertheless, it is not a guide to open and follow during a meeting. Study it before you facilitate a meeting or after a meeting to determine ways to do a better job the next time.