Global Facilitators Serving Communities was founded in 2002 as a 501c3 organization to support local efforts in facilitating sustainable change in communities and organizations in crisis. Their work has spanned a global reach in the United States, China, the Philippines and Latin America. Their impact has helped in Katrina in New Orleans, hurricanes and tornadoes in Asia and environmental disasters in Latin America. Contact them at info@globalfacilitators.org.

1. Building Community
Resilience
and Self-Reliance
GFSC Board of Directors:
Lenny Diamond
Timothy Karpoff
A 501 C3 non-profit Ximena Corbarizo
Marieann Shovlin
Global Facilitator Serving Communities, Inc. © 2012. All rights reserved.

2. GFSC provides mentoring, methods,
and materials to strengthen community
resilience in times of crisis and change.
Global Facilitator Serving Communities, Inc. © 2012. All rights reserved.

3. Rebuilding Social Networks
What is important:
• After a community crisis, rebuilding social networks
is as critical as rebuilding the physical environment.
• Building a sense of community is as important as
helping individuals build their own lives.
• Building group resilience is as important as building
individual resilience.
Global Facilitator Serving Communities, Inc. © 2012. All rights reserved.

4. Local Resources…
• Group facilitators—and all those who help build a
community—are an untapped resource in
responding to crisis.
• Teachers, doctors, pastors, social workers,
community elders, and others—all can help
rebuild social networks.
• Facilitators have important core skills—and they
need additional skills for crisis situations.
Global Facilitator Serving Communities, Inc. © 2012. All rights reserved.

5. Strengthening Local Capacity
• Local communities retain capacity to respond to
crisis—and local leaders & facilitators are in best
suited to help strengthen this capacity.
• Outsiders have very limited ability to help rebuild
social networks.
• Outsiders can create a dependence mindset in
others—and a rescue mindset in themselves.
Global Facilitator Serving Communities, Inc. © 2012. All rights reserved.

6. How GFSC Can Help
GFSC has a model that helps facilitators think and
act effectively:
• It is based on a social learning
• To help groups and communities build resilience
and move through crisis to rebuilding and
recovery; and
• To work alongside and to continue after the work
of other crisis intervention organizations.
Global Facilitator Serving Communities, Inc. © 2012. All rights reserved.

7. Key Points of GFSC
Crisis to Resilience Model
• Crisis > Change > Choice
• Learning as a community
• Understanding effective and ineffective
behaviors
• Applying effective leadership styles
• Caring for ourselves as we care for others
Global Facilitator Serving Communities, Inc. © 2012. All rights reserved.

8. Crisis
A symbol for crisis
comprised of
“danger”
and
“opportunity”
• present in every
change/transition
• reactions are normal,
natural
and necessary
• never takes away the
ability to make
choices
Global Facilitator Serving Communities, Inc. © 2012. All rights reserved.

9. What is Resilience?
• The ability to face internal or external crisis and not only
effectively resolve it but also learn from it, be strengthened by it
and emerge transformed by it, both individually and as a group
(Brenson-Lazan, 2003).
• Resilience requires:
 Personal Development
 Interpersonal Development
 Vision
 Strategic Thinking
Global Facilitator Serving Communities, Inc. © 2012. All rights reserved. 9

10. Building Community Resilience
Crisis > Change
• Physical
• Psychological
External • Social
• Spiritual
DENIAL
Crisis
&
> INITIAL
REACTIONS
Internal
•Existence
•Significance
•Options
•Resources
What’s Next?
Global Facilitator Serving Communities, Inc. © 2012. All rights reserved
10

11. Crisis > Change > Choice
Resilient,
Self-Reliant
Community
Crisis DENIAL OPPORTUNITY
?
&
> INITIAL >
REACTIONS
DANGER
Unintended
Consequences
Global Facilitator Serving Communities, Inc. © 2012. All rights reserved 11

12. Building Community Resilience:
Stages and Strategies Resilient,
Self-reliant
s Community
tra tegie Associate
t ive S
Effec Activate
Assimilate
Accommodate
Recovery
Stages/Needs Survival Security Autonomy Community
Social Climate/
Behaviors Reactive Receptive Proactive Interactive
Avoid
Abdicate
Ineff Automate
ectiv
e Str
ateg Alienate
ies
Unintended
Consequences
Global Facilitator Serving Communities, Inc. © 2012. All rights reserved. 12

13. GFSC Global Applications
• Medical personal in Taiwan Earthquake
• Profesional Facilitators after Hurricane Katrina
• Community Groups in Australian Fires
• Refugee Shelters after a Colombian town was buried.
• Educators after Landslide in Vargas City, Venezuela
• Social Workers after Hurricane Mitch in Nicaragua
• First Responders in Los Angeles, California
• Typhoon Morakot, Taiwan
Global Facilitator Serving Communities, Inc. © 2012. All rights reserved
13

14. Contact GFSC
www.globalfacilitators.org
info@globalfacilitators.org
Global Facilitator Serving Communities, Inc. © 2012. All rights reserved.