World Cafés

Facilitating conversations that matter with people who don’t engage.

Check out this World Café being used to discuss problem off road biking

The use of World Cafés as a method of understanding complex issues is growing. They are often the start of a wider engagement process and provide an opportunity to discuss, listen and exchange views about specific community issues.  The World Café is a process that enables you to ‘harvest’ the thoughts of people who sometimes have a different reality, or different experiences – perfect to use in diverse communities.

There are two options we offer in world cafes:

Option 1: To train frontline teams to deliver their own World Cafes (one day knowledge training), and support them with our expertise of delivering hundreds of World Café experiences (applied knowledge).

Option 2: If your organisation does not have the teams and/or capacity/expertise to deliver a high-quality world café, we can deliver it for you.

Who is the product for?

Option 1: Front line teams

Option 2: Service Providers/Consultors

The Process

Option 1

Six days of learning and support, resulting in the delivery of an effective world café. This includes programme management and our attendance at your event to provide independent feedback.

Option 2

  • Full programme design and delivery of a World Café in your area
  • We can train your teams in facilitation for the Café to reduce costs or we can use our expert facilitators
  • We can recruit for you or we can run a recruitment workshop with partners to strengthen your existing your recruitment
  • We design and print all the Café materials, and provide all the table cloth, pens, etc
  • We undertake all the data input, coding and analysis
  • We produce the final report
  • We co design the follow up activity (if the Café is not a one off dialogue for consultation purposes)

Outputs/Outcomes Expected

  • Community sharing issues that matter to them or talking about an issue that is affecting them but not being formally discussed anywhere
  • Insight into the things that matter to specific communiities
  • Creation of community energy to take the conversation into action (if required)
  • 20 participants (staff and/or community) trained in World Café essentials (option 1)
  • 20 participants supported to deliver their first World Cafe (Option 1)
  • Sample of local materials created (Café menus, guides etc) to be used with other teams, where relevant (both options)
  • Team experience of coding and analysing data from a World Café (option 1)
  • First report from your Café process is reviewed by us as your critical friend to ensure authenticity and voice is captured effectively (option 1) or production of a report (option 2)
  • Organisational team of practitioners able to help with future Café delivery, or to be critical friends of peers in future (option 1)
  • Shared learning experience across a partnership (option 1)
  • Full oversight of the process and liaison with commissioning partner/board (both options)

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See Our Other Services

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World Café

World Café page