Crafting workshops for connection

***No craft skills are needed for this workshop, but you will get the chance to handle a range of materials***

Accessible crafts can bring active listening, movement and joy into meetings. They can be successfully used with senior stakeholders as well as in teams.

Learn how you can use elements of craft to create inclusive, embodied and memorable meetings that form the foundation for collaboration. 

This session includes an opportunity to explore, discuss and craft, along with a case study of how we tested and evaluated a collaborative mosaic-making technique in climate and health policy workshops and how it helped people connect and be creative while calming the debate on emotive topics.

Participant takeaways:

• Crafting helps people be present and bring their whole selves to the room, which encourages active listening.
• Inviting people to do simple crafting is levelling and inclusive. 
• Talking about issues through objects helps depersonalise them, which means workshops feel calmer and more constructive.
• Moving around more and actively listening is tiring as we don’t do it enough at work, so carefully pace workshops and mix methodologies.
• Practical tips on how to bring craft into workshops.

Themes:

Teamwork, Facilitation, Story Telling, Inclusivity, People, Visualisation, Creativity, Games, Meetings

This session:

• Includes interaction