How to create a safe group container as a facilitator
A space that’s “out of the ordinary” is one of the best ways to establish group connection.
Hello dear fellow Connector! Today’s piece is intended for all the facilitators and space holders out there — experienced or not, “formal” ones or not. :)
If you hold (or aspire to hold) any kind of group experiences, this is packed with a ton of useful insights.
Let’s dive right into it.
Some time ago, my friend Sam asked me why people often feel like they can express themselves fully in facilitated events — but not outside of them. They suggested we should empower people in our community to experiment with new ways of being beyond facilitated group containers.
On the one hand, I share Sam’s sentiment. I’d love to see people as free to express themselves day-to-day as they are in held spaces. At the same time, I don’t think that’s realistic.
Why? Because a well-designed group container is precisely what enables new ways af being.
Thanks to the structure it provides, it removes many unimportant decisions from the equation. This preserves cognitive resources, allowing us to drop deeper into the experience. The result? People say and do things they otherwise wouldn’t — and, through that, expand their sense of who they are.
How exactly does that happen? And what does a good container consist of? These are the main points I’m addressing in this article.
Are you up for a deep dive?
What is a group container?
A group container can be defined simply: it’s a pre-arranged context for human interaction.
In other words — it’s a space and time that’s carved out of the “ordinary” for a specific purpose. That purpose can be to have an honest conversation, to address conflict, to learn something together, to work on a project, and many others. It can be as simple as an intentional conversation — or as complex as a week-long seminar.
In this piece, I’m talking specifically about group containers. That said, a container can be set up for just two people — like it happens in the context of one-on-one therapy. Heck, you can even create a container for yourself if you desire to have a boundaried, intentional experience! For example, you could organize a self-held mindfulness retreat (like my friend Julia did), deciding in advance what you’ll eat, when you’ll meditate, and that you’ll keep your phone switched off. Those kinds of pre-made decisions can support your journey into yourself.
A more visual definition of a container is “something that holds something else.” I like to think of it as an actual material thing. This helps me envision what a group gets when you provide a good quality, stable container — and also, when you don’t.
Let’s look at the cover image with that perspective in mind.
A good container prevents water from spilling — as well as gives it shape, limiting where it can go. Thanks to that, you can actually do something with that water — water plants, drink it, wash your hands, make tea. It’s just the same with group work. When there’s a container holding it, the experience becomes more deliberate, focused, and purposeful.
But what can also happen is a container that’s (1) too small or (2) leaky.
In the first case (container is too small), it may be because a facilitator isn’t skilled enough to contain a big experience happening in the group — such as conflict or surfacing trauma. Or, the confines of time and space prevent people from tapping fully into the emerging experience. Maybe you need to vacate the room and there’s no time to fully dive into a big discussion that’s just started.
In my experience, it’s not the end of the world when a container is too small. It usually just means that something gets lost in translation, a thread isn’t explored as much as it could be, or one or more participants aren’t empowered to make the best of the experience. But most of the water still stays in the bucket.
It becomes a bigger problem when a container leaks — i.e. the initial assumptions or expectations about the group experience are compromised for no justifiable reason. A broken bucket gives an initial promise to contain — which is then not being fulfilled. For example, a workshop doesn’t deliver the information it promised in the flier. A facilitator abuses their power or otherwise breaks agreements/norms. A deep, heart-felt gathering ends abruptly and with no chance integration.
A leaky container can look in a myriad different ways. What happens underneath is that it compromises its overall purpose — a sense of safety and holding. This may cause the experience to “spill” and become either irrelevant, unfocused, or (at worst) harmful.
Your role as a facilitator is to create a container that is tight and big enough for what you’re inviting people into. In the rest of this piece, we’ll focus on how to do just that.
Five most important elements of a tight container
How do you set up a safe (enough) space for people to learn and try on new ways of being?
The keyword here is clarity.
People feel encouraged when they know what they’ll be doing, for how long, with whom, and how they can suggest alternatives. They also should have a clear way of opting out of anything they don’t want to do.
That’s roughly the job of a good group container, from the perspective of a participant.
There’s a thousand ways to create this experience. Here are five elements I think about when setting up a group container.
1. A plan
Having a plan is useful for most group situations. It allows you to prepare as a facilitator — as well as communicate to the group what they should expect. When people know what’s going to happen next — even roughly — it becomes easier to relax and focus on the present.
Of course, a plan often needs to be flexible. But having one puts a frame on the experience, helps to manage expectations, and serves as a reference point during group time. Whenever you feel like the group side-tracks too much, you can ask: “Is this still what we want to be doing? Do we want to return to what we originally planned?”
Depending on the wider context, it may be helpful to share the plan in advance. This often appliers to longer group experiences (e.g. retreats, multi-week courses), or when you want people to prepare in a specific way.
2. A set amount of time
This may seem obvious but still worth mentioning. I’ve been in many situations where the duration of a group experience wasn’t named — or, it was named but not respected. Meanwhile, agreeing on “how long we intend to spend doing this thing” is one of the most supportive elements of a container.
If you’re running over time, that’s fine. Just name it and check with the group whether they’re happy to keep going. If you don’t acknowledge the time running out, you risk having a “leaky” container. People may not know if what’s happening is still part of the structured experience, or a casual chat.
This can jeopardize the sense of safety and cause your hard-earned group trust to “spill.”
3. Opening and closing
Having a clear opening and closing moment helps the human brain know what’s going on. Most people feel a lot more grounded when there’s a clear beginning and end to a group experience. It makes sense — homo sapiens evolved to ritualize experience as a way of navigating uncertainty and moderating social interactions.
This is especially important when you’re inviting people to do something uncomfortable. Knowing that there’s a start and finish to a difficult experience helps people lean into their edge more.
How to open and close a container? There are many ways. Depending on the time you have available, you can have shorter or longer openings and closings. My rule of thumb is that the time you spend dropping into and getting out of the experience should be proportional to how deep you want the group to go.
In other words, the more out-of-the-ordinary the experience feels, the longer you should take to help people get in and out of it.
Here are some ideas for opening and closing group containers:
Verbal check-ins and check-outs
Guided meditation
Other grounding practices — movement, breathing, icebreaker conversations
Sharing intentions and learnings
Doing small rituals, such as lighting and blowing a candle.
4. Group agreements or norms
Agreements or norms are a set of guidelines for how to be in a space. Often, these have to do with how we want to relate to one another to ensure everyone feels respected and safe to participate.
Agreements and norms can be:
Implicit: unspoken, we assume everyone knows what they are, or
Explicit: we name them out loud or even write them down.
For the purpose of creating intentional containers, I’m interested in making explicit agreements. These should (1) be relevant to your group context and (2) not contradict the wider culture people are embedded in.
Imagine you’re facilitating an informal community meet-up, where some people are close friends and others only know each other’s faces. One agreement for this container could be how you want to approach physical touch. Naming that touch is a vulnerable experience for many people, you can invite people to check for verbal consent before they hug someone.
By doing this, you’re acknolwedging that some people might feel more comfortable with touch than others. They may assume consent because they feel like they’re around friends. But actually, the level of proximity varies for different group members. By creating an explicit norm around touch, people don’t need to wonder what is and isn’t okay in the space.
If you’re looking for inspiration to work on your group agreements, this set of agreements from Authentic Europe events is a good starting point.
5. Clear intention for the experience
Casual meetings, hangouts, or outings often don’t have a clearly stated purpose. People assume they know why they’re meeting — and often, they’re right.
However, misunderstandings also happen. For example, during a work team outing some people assume it’s just for fun, while others hope it might be an occasion to address unspoken team dynamics. This may not be the end of the world. However, it often leaves part of the group disappointed.
Creating a clear container minimizes the chances for this happening. By stating the intention for the group’s time together, everyone settles on the same “why.” Why did we decide to meet? Why is this worth our time? Why do we care about this?
Knowing the “why” not only adds to clarity and minimizes dissapointment. Similarly to having a plan, it can also help the group stay on-point. When people get distracted, the facilitator can reference the original purpose and bring the shared intention into focus.
A good container is more enabling than limiting
With all these rules, norms, and good practices for creating containers, it’s easy to wonder:
Isn’t it all quite limiting?
I heard this question many times — mostly from those new to facilitation and structured experiences. Their argument was that by setting up so many rules— the time, commiting to talking only about one topic, sticking to pre-planned activity, and so on — we ignore “the flow.” We limit our freedom to respond to what’s emerging, favouring a pre-decided agenda instead.
My response? Of course a strict container isn’t the best choice in all circumstances. Some situations require spontaneity and flow more than structure, sure.
However, there are also moments when you care about a specific experience more than about the freedom to do whatever. You may want to prioritize:
Hearing everyone’s voices in a conversation
Completing a specific project with the contribution from the whole team
Equalizing power in a group
Encouraging people to try on ways of being that would otherwise feel too risky.
In those cases, a container will be a more enabling setup then leaving everything up to “the flow.” And this isn’t to say that flow is out of the qurestion. There are lots of ways to embody responsiveness and flexibility inside a container.
But even then, a general frame of the experience has been set. People’s expectations are more suited to the situation. A lot of small decisions have been pre-made, so the group can focus on the most relevant aspects. A sense of safety is established. People are encouraged to say and do things they otherwise wouldn’t.
If you ask me, all these are pretty damn enabling rather than limiting things.