Valery is adept at facilitating connection and collaboration among groups of all sizes. She gently guides participants to surfacing new insights and perspectives. She takes active care of individual and group energy and experience. She brings creative approaches that help groups emerge to better decisions, more impact, and deeper connection with ease.
Valery is constantly exploring new facilitation tools to add to her toolbox of creative methods refined across more than a decade of facilitation and experience design practice.
Valery draws on anti-oppressive and trauma-informed frameworks to facilitate the participation of people society often pushes to the margins such as people of colour, and people living with mental illness and addiction.
Please reach out to explore how Valery’s unique talent for facilitating connection and collaboration might enhance your next virtual or in-person gathering!
Portfolio of Connection and Collaboration
Professional Facilitator
In addition to the facilitation Valery carries out within her consulting projects, some examples of the her work as a professional facilitator include:
- Retreats for organizations such as the Council for Certification in Volunteer Administration, the federal public service’s Office of Public Service Accessibility, and World Wildlife Fund Canada.
- Public engagement sessions such as those carried out to develop Canada’s Integrated Strategy for Radioactive Waste.
- Decision-making for governing bodies such as the National Nominating Committee selecting CAMH’s 150 Leading Canadians for Mental Health.
- Processes for coliving / cohousing founders and residents.
- Processes for parties navigating interpersonal conflict.
Experience Designer
As an experience designer Valery has:
- Co-produced the Real Talk program track for Reset 2018. Reset was founded as a weekend-long immersive digital detox experience. Real Talk programming focused on dialogue and connection and included a popular peer support program called “Space Holders.”
- Co-created a series of anti-oppression circles within the Real Talk programming. The circles created space for people to share their lived experiences as racialized people, LGBTQ+ people, people living with mental health challenges, and other intersectional identities. A number of participants reflected that the circles played an essential role in making Reset a safe(r) space for them.
- Directed the design of a series of Un-Town Halls. Featuring a pop-up gallery and design labs the experiences reimagined the twice annual CEO Town Halls at CAMH, a hospital with 5000 employees located across multiple sites.
Click here to learn about Valery’s upcoming public events and experiences.