Guidance and Expectations for Regarding Men Meeting Facilitators

Guidance and Expectations for Regarding Men Meeting Facilitators

It is Regarding Men’s mission to provide a supportive, non-judgmental environment for men across the world without respect to age, culture, or any other demographic division. Accordingly, we have established these guidelines for all meeting facilitators, in whom we trust to maintain said environment.

Absolutely no shaming. This is a cardinal rule. While facilitators are free to disagree and/or dissent from group members, particularly when members demonstrate harmful or dysfunctional thinking, such disagreement and/or dissent will be expressed in a supportive, respectful manner. Period, no ifs, ands, or buts.

No women. Regarding Men groups are designed exclusively for male attendees. Group facilitators are not to make exceptions to this for any reason.

Regarding Men does allow for a limited amount of groups facilitated by women, but that does not hold true for attendees.

Active listening. Group facilitators are expected to listen carefully and with an open mind to all group members. We ask that you don’t interrupt, except to ask for clarification when necessary.

Full presence. Group facilitators are required to stay seated and on camera for the duration of their time in the group. Nothing demonstrates a lack of caring in a facilitator more than going away while the group is in progress.

Limit direct advice. As the saying goes, advice is cheap. It is important to remember that people who give direct advice aren’t the ones experiencing the consequences for following it. Clearly there will be exceptions to this, such as when group members ask for advice from the facilitator directly. Even then, we ask facilitators to proceed with caution and humility. We find it is usually better to ask other group members if they have thoughts on what they are hearing than it is to try to “fix” a group members problem. Facilitators can best help members by encouraging support from and reliance on the group.

Start on time, end on time (with a provision).  Punctuality and dependability are essential for Regarding Men meetings. Facilitators must be counted on to reliably host their meetings as scheduled. On time, every time. That’s the standard. Meetings are 90 minutes in duration, at which time the facilitator should exit. Regarding Men meetings routinely carry on, sometimes for hours, after a facilitator departs. We encourage and support this. Facilitators are to turn the hosting over to a responsible meeting member at the end of 90 minutes and leave the group.

A note on disruptors. Disruptors in Regarding Men Meetings are expected to be exceedingly rare, but we anticipate that some disruptors are inevitable. We trust our facilitators to handle this confidently, understanding that part of the facilitator’s duty is to protect the meetings from malicious undermining. If a member is causing a problem, we urge facilitators to first encourage the group to confront that problem and correct it. If that fails, or if it otherwise becomes apparent that an individual is being intentionally disruptive with no interest in stopping that behavior, they are to be removed and the incident should be reported to the management team.