The facilitator training programme was developed by the University of Porto, with input from across the consortium of project partners.  It was designed to prepare participants for the development and delivery of the student auditor training programme.  The facilitator training programme was delivered in early 2017, in blended mode, with 20 participants from five of the partner organisations.  The training programme was delivered in the following format:

Phase 1 - online pre-course

This included a preparatory suite of activities, including a personal presentation; identification of three practices of social responsibility that trainee facilitators consider to be “good” practice; initiation of an "Individual Training Journal" and key reading and videos recommended on the topics

Phase 2 - face-to-face training week

The week was divided into three main topics: the concept of university social responsibility and benchmarking; the Social Responsibility Audit; and  pedagogical preparation for the student auditor training. 

Phase 3 - online post-course activities

After the end of the face-to-face training week, participants were issued with a training evaluation questionnaire. In addition to assessing and measuring the impact of the training, it also provided a forum for discussion and sharing of materials between facilitators within the development of the subsequent training of student auditors. Participants were issued with a series of tasks, issued fortnightly, between the end of the Facilitator Training and the beginning of the student Auditor Training Programme. 

The pedagogical strategies focused on during the training mirror those adopted in the Auditor Training Programme.  These include promoting group work, debate, problem resolution, and individual reflection, balanced with structured coverage of new content by the trainers, and the systematisation of the results achieved at the end of each activity, both by the trainees and the trainers. 

You can read more about the experience of the facilitator training during the funding period here.

The key output from this activity is a facilitator training manual, which is included in the Open Education Resource (OER). This has been reconfigured as a self-completed course, though the approach adopted here could also be replicated in future. You can access the resource here.