Workshop programme extended
In 1976, the second phase of development of the HPRP got under way, with James Kilty spearheading the project, with Nicholas Ragg of the Sociology Department as co-assistant directors and John as honorary Director. This phase of the work concentrated on bringing the research results mentioned to a wider public, from all walks of life. The public workshop programme began with the core methods mentioned, plus “Sexuality”, “Transpersonal Psychology”, “Death and Suffering”, “Transactional Analysis”, “Simulations”, and a more general “New Concepts in Personal Growth”. The following year saw the additions of “Birth Re-enactment and Primal Integration”, “Experiential Methods, “Enhancing Counselling, “Radical Education”, and a “Co-counselling Teacher Training” course. This phase saw the maturation of the core project goals of establishing quality standards for individual and group facilitation skills, in the field of personal and interpersonal development, and promoting those standards in a workshop and training programme.
Facilitator Styles
This core value was then expressed in a long “Facilitator Styles” course of two years duration and accredited by the Institute for the Development of Human Potential (IDHP). It amalgamated the core programmes and wove them into a coherent whole, with personal and interpersonal development, facilitator development and social change as three parallel and mutually supportive themes. The first course was undertaken in 1978, with 18 members from diverse professions including medicine, psychiatry, nursing administration, psychotherapy, education, social work, voluntary work and parenthood. In subsequent years it was offered first biennially, then annually (until ....). This brought in external facilitators as complementary models which were scrutinised against our core values and practices. It also made worthwhile the opportunity to use the project programme as a “nursery bed” for budding facilitators (many of whom were experienced in their own right).
New partners
As the association with BPMF developed and as links with external organisations flowered, many of the core courses were repeated in different forms and in different centres. New courses such as “Interpersonal Skills Training Methods”, “Cathartic Techniques”, “Advanced Co-counselling”, and “Practical Methods of Dealing with Stress” were added to the programme along with “Couples Workshops”, “New Paradigms of Research”, “The Integration of pre- and peri-natal Experience” and “Sexuality and Psychosexual Counselling”. The Brunel Management Programme and later and in addition, the Brunel Self Management Programme invited us to collaborate and make joint offerings to our client base. Courses were linked together so that individuals and organisations could profit from more substantial and sustained development than attendance at individual workshops without the huge investment in the 120 day Faciliator Styles course. A departmental certificate was offered to demonstrate the commitment and achievement of themed selections from our programme. A Personal Development and Community Participation course was also developed as an ongoing preparation to qualify for the Faciliator Styles long course.
Early retirement
James took early retirement in 1997 having previously decided to retire and pass on the Director's role in response to the hiatus caused by the then Vice-Chancellor's decision to evaluate the Department. This followed previous “evaluations” of other departments, some of which had been closed as a result. The whole tenor of the evaluation showed no acknowledgement that evaluating University Departments had a pedigree and literature, ignoring a basic tenet of University life. Its style was non-informative and non-co-operative, in a major way contradicting the whole philosophy and style of the HPRP. It halted all promised developments for 12 months, including the development of a new Masters Degree in Experiential Learning and Facilitation, based on individualised selections from the workshop programme supplemented with appropriate reflection, analysis and reporting, particularly of the application of learning at work or in daily life. It therefore seemed timely to leave the work to younger staff.
Change of direction
In the third and final phase of the HPRP, it was first transformed in name to the Human Potential Resources Group. The Departmental Report of 1988 summarises this.
