Seeking facilitators, community builders, coaches, collaborative types:
- Host a 9–10 month, part-time adventure
- Invest in your own development — and by doing so support a group of 12 people to grow themselves, together
- You’ll be paid a stipend to support you to make it happen
- You can be based anywhere in the UK
- Apply by 9am Monday 18th February
Enrol Yourself is seeking self-starting hosts to join us on our mission to equip 21st Century adults to grow themselves, together — amidst increasing uncertainty and forces driving inequality, vulnerability and environmental crisis. Your task will be to connect and activate an Enrol Yourself peer group in your local area, supporting them through our six month programme: the Learning Marathon.
This opportunity is a springboard — grow yourself as a facilitator, as a ‘maker-happener’ or ‘agent of change’. Create something special and valuable in the community where you live, and be at the heart of a network of new relationships. There’s a famous quote by Robert A. Heinlein which says ‘when one teaches, two learn’. In the case of Enrol Yourself, it becomes ‘when one hosts, twelve grow’.
“Enrol Yourself has helped me evolve and improve my adaptive leadership skills. I’ve nurtured my creative life and experimented with my own distinct style as a facilitator and coach. I’m now working with my second peer group. I’m growing facilitation super-powers!”
— David Heinemann, Enrol Yourself facilitator
1. More about Enrol Yourself
Our purpose
- We equip 21st C adults to grow themselves, together — so they can flourish across the life course, amidst increasing uncertainty and forces driving inequality, vulnerability and environmental crisis.
- We connect peer groups that, with facilitation, produce a rich ‘soil’ of opportunities, momentum, networks, experience, skills which each individual can draw on to fuel their growth.
- We’re on a mission to drive an increase in adult participation in lifelong learning and development.
“The development of more co-operative social patterns of behaviour and resource use is fundamental in a world of diminishing resources.”
— David Holmgren, Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability
To date
Since 2016 Enrol Yourself has been prototyping a new model for lifelong learning and development, one that is cooperative, peer-to-peer and self directed. We began in London, bringing together groups of peers to trial the Learning Marathon, our 6 month programme. In 2017 we won the Our Place in the World award for responses to the future of work, allowing us to launch in Birmingham.
Inclusivity
We believe power should be in the hands of communities to make learning and development happen for themselves. More diverse participation leads to greater developmental potential for each peer group, and a more transformational experience for every learner. As such, we are committed to improving upon our inclusivity in the long-term. Read more about this here.
Our vision
We want to become a multi-local network of facilitators and hosts working to support adults to grow themselves, together. We would like to see the power of peer groups spread! We’re keen to become an organisation that is owned by and accountable to our facilitators. We are still developing what this looks like and hope to work with people who are keen to build it with us.
2. Facilitator role description
- Location: Open call (anywhere in the UK)
- Duration: 9–10 months
- Time commitment: Part-time (approx 35-40 days)
- Stipend: £5000 (+ profit share)
Benefits and support:
- 3 days training and initiation — free of charge
- Regular check-ins with community of fellow facilitators and Enrol team to share ideas and support, plus a supportive community of previous participants.
- Access to Enrol Yourself toolkit including learning experience design framework, learning philosophy, all programme materials and brand
- Marketing budget, materials and assets, and support from the team to recruit your peer group
- And of course, you participate in the Learning Marathon free of charge
What you’ll get out of it
- Collaborate with like-minded facilitators in different parts of the UK.
- Deepen your understanding and experience of lifelong learning, peer-to-peer learning and community building.
- Grow your capability and confidence as a ‘maker-happener’ or ‘agent of change’ able to turn a vision into a living, breathing reality.
- Create something valuable and meaningful where you live. Contribute to your community and develop your network of local relationships.
- Support the learning journeys of your participants. Watch people grow in unexpected ways and play a meaningful role in that growth.
- Expand your facilitator range and skill-set. Play with new approaches and develop your personal style.
Responsibilities
You will be responsible for initiating a peer group in your local area by marketing the opportunity, recruiting a full group and hosting the six month programme, participating alongside your peers.
- Participate in training which will prepare you for the journey
- Use the Enrol Yourself brand and marketing materials to recruit 10–12 paying participants (or obtain alternative sponsorship)
- Develop relationships with local organisations who might support the peer group, for example by donating space for meet-ups
- Use our toolkit to prepare for and deliver programme activities and support participants to co-deliver with you
- ‘Hold space’ and adapt to group dynamics so that the peer group can flourish effectively
- Support the group to maintain an active learning community online
- Project management: keep the project to time
- Check in regularly with the Enrol Yourself team to share learnings
- Be an ambassador for Enrol Yourself, documenting and communicating the activity of the peer group online
3. Person specification
This is an ideal opportunity for a facilitator, coach, designer, programme producer, community builder or all-round collaborative individual interested in crafting exciting spaces for learning and community. You will have a keen interest in personal development and be excited by the prospect of working with a startup, learning as we go. You might see this as part of a wider portfolio of work and you would bring an entrepreneurial attitude to the project — and a sensitive approach to working with people.
You must be able to commit to spending the equivalent of 1 day per week across 9–10 months and must have enough flexibility for this to fluctuate.
Essential:
- Experience facilitating groups of people (within programmes, workshops, sessions or events)
- Experience managing programmes, projects and/or events
- Experience with recruitment (getting people signed up for programmes, workshops, sessions, events or equivalent)
- A solid local professional and/or personal network
- Skilled at building relationships, you thrive on working with diverse groups of people
- Excellent communication skills and emotional intelligence
- Open, learning mindset, flexible and adaptable to new challenges
Desirable:
- Coaching skills
- Experience building local partnerships
- Experience with co-design and co-production approaches
- Experience working for a startup
- Experience using online collaboration tools such as Google docs, Slack etc.
4. How to apply
We’re inviting you to set up your own page on the Enrol Yourself website (which will look something like this) where you can tell the world that you’re thinking about setting up a peer group. You’ll be able to share your page with your network and communities to gather expressions of interest, and we’ll help by sharing your page too. Reach 15 sign ups or more and we’ll interview you. Together we’ll figure out whether Enrol Yourself is the right vehicle for you, and if we want to journey together.
The process looks like this so that we can gain a sense of appetite for a peer group in your local area, telling you and us whether now is the right moment to forge ahead. We also think this approach opens up the recruitment process in a really exciting way.
Email zahra@enrolyourself.com with any questions.
- Send the information for your webpage via this short form by 9am Monday 18th February. We ask for your bio and a description of the peer group* you want to host.
- You can then share this page and gather expressions of interest — you’ll have until the end of February. Whilst you’re welcome to approach this task in any way you see fit, we expect that it should take no more than 3–4 hours to share your page via social media, email, WhatsApp etc. in order to reach an initial group of sign ups.
- Reach 15 or more expressions of interest and we’ll interview you.
- New hosts will begin their journey together with training and initiation in April.
* You might want to work with a similar target audience to those we’ve worked with in London or Birmingham (cross-sector adults 25–50) — or you might see potential to work with a different audience. This might relate to a specific age range, demographic or common interest. E.g. over 50’s, parents or career changers. We welcome these proposals but we would encourage you to think about the size of your city/town and whether you might be making recruitment difficult for yourself.
