Running Writing Workshops is for anyone looking to develop a range of workshop management skills for use in their own creative, academic, professional or recreational practice.

The training is suitable if you:

• Are running or would like to run writing groups or workshops
• Would like to develop your skills as a group facilitator
• Work with groups or run writing workshops in schools and academic settings
• Use writing groups in your counselling practice
• Run or would like to set up an informal creative writing group
• Are interested in using writing as a therapeutic tool in group settings
• Need a steer on the logistics, ethics and legal framework of running groups
• Are looking for practical resources, exercises and teaching plans to use with writing groups
• Are seeking a CPD (Continuing Professional Development) course (15 hours didactic learning, 15 hours peer learning)
• Enjoy the discipline of deadlines and peer learning
• Want to join a friendly and supportive small group of learners
• Can dedicate 5-7 hours per week to the learning (at a time to suit you).
  

This course allows you to:

• Learn the principles of running a writing workshop
• Explore and identify your role as a writing group facilitator
• Identify what kind of workshop you would like to run
• Develop an action plan for getting a workshop off the ground
• Use writing groups in your counselling practice
• Make workshops more effective in academic settings
• Run groups in a professional setting for reflective practice
• Use writing workshops as a teaching tool
• Set up informal groups for creative writers
• Produce teaching and management plans, risk assessments, launch plans and promotional materials
• Feel confident in using a range of resources and exercises
• Develop transferable professional skills (discipline, attention to detail, ability to work to deadlines)
• Increase professionalism in working with others
• Feel more confident in responding to other people’s work and receiving responses to your own work
• Build greater independence, autonomy and judgment as you self-direct, self-manage and realise assignments to the course briefs.

Sessions are available on Monday morning each week. While there are set deadlines for posting your work and giving feedback to fellow classmates, our 24/7 digital campus means you can work through the course material at your own pace. This course is flexible, with no pre-recordings or live classes, so you can dip in and out, fitting perfectly around any work or family commitments.

Session 1: Introducing Writing Groups – What is a writing workshop? We’ll begin by considering the history of writing groups and the variety of settings and people that they might include. We’ll look at what you want to gain personally from the course and start thinking about the sort of group you’d like to run.

Session 2: How Do Groups Work? – We’ll consider the psychology of groups and what makes them tick, with reference to existing principles including transference and projection. You’ll consider your own experience of group dynamics and how this will affect your practice and workshop plan.

Session 3: Being a Facilitator – What kind of facilitator will you be and what skills will you need? We’ll discuss facilitation styles and using writing and reflection, and will start to explore the style in which you will run your group.

Session 4: Planning and Managing – We’ll look at how to structure a session or group series, how to establish goals and evaluate outcomes. You’ll think about goals for your own writing group and content for the sessions.

Session 5: Staying Safe – We’ll consider the important issues of ethics and legalities of running groups and of keeping ourselves safe through mentoring and supervision. You’ll put your own ideas forward on how to deal with these challenges.

Session 6: Putting it All Together – You’ll complete the course by writing a mission statement based on your learning so far. With the support of your tutors and fellow learners, you’ll put the finishing touches to your writing group project proposal and outline your plans for the future.

After finishing the course you might like to explore our companion course Introduction to Therapeutic and Reflective Writing.

Join our alumni

After your course, you can join our online alumni where you’ll meet our growing network of past students. The alumni is a friendly group of writers who support each other as they continue to explore and develop their writing.

Within our online alumni area you can:

• Rejoin your classmates on a private forum and access an archived version of your course materials and forum posts
• Meet alumni from other courses and groups and share your work for feedback on our alumni critiquing forum
• Join in on discussions about reading, writing, editing and ideas on our general discussion forum. This is also where we share news and useful info
• Retain access to our resources area, which has interesting and informative links
• Chat with other people online using the alumni area live chatroom. We also host live chats with guests here

What happens next?

At the end of the course, you will have the opportunity for a one-to-one conversation with one of your tutors to discuss your next steps.

Taking things further

If you’d like to continue on to another Professional Writing Academy course, we’ll give you a discount. Please get in touch for more details.