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ACTIVE BYSTANDERP O L Y K A L A T R A I N I N G

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OUR APPROACH: DIVERSITY & INCLUSION

P O L Y K A L A T R A I N I N G

Diversity is the mix of people and inclusion is helping the mix work. There are two important categories of diversity: demographic and viewpoint. Demographic diversity refers to visible and invisible features of our identity such as age, sex, abilities and ethnicity. Viewpoint diversity refers to mostly invisible features including our personality, ideology, temperament and belief systems.

We believe paying attention to and cultivating both forms of diversity results in workplaces that are creative, productive and reflective of the wider community. There’s never been a more important time to reflect on the role diversity plays in our society and the part each one of us can play to be more inclusive of the different ways we are human.

Our training creates opportunities where participants can (a) reflect on own relationship to diversity, (b) understand the impacts felt by people who experience marginalisation and, (c) learn and practice strategies to cultivate workplace cultures that accomodate and celebrate diversity.

We invite participants to treat ‘inclusion’ as a verb, something they can enact to make a positive difference in their workplace and everyday life. We feel inclusion is a core value that organisations need to take seriously. It is an opportunity to exercise adaptive leadership for social good.

"I gained a great awareness and believe it has made me a better person in my life as well as a Manager. It provided real life stories, challenging scenarios and opportunities to raise questions to people who live and breathe these situations.."Debbie Tyson - Manager, Development & Compliance ServicesCardinia Shire Council

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Polykala’s Active Bystander training enables participants to take safe and constructive action against discriminatory and harmful behaviour. Our training promotes a culture of decentralised social leadership. That means staff (irrespective of position) are supported to stand up for a just, fair and inclusive workplace or community.

Too often social leadership in the form of starting difficult conversations or holding people to account is left to people from minority backgrounds. Our society, we believe, can do much better. If all of us take responsibility for upholding inclusive tolerant social standards then more of us can develop a sense of belonging. Being an active bystander requires reflectivity, emotional intelligence, courage and a sense of humour. Making a difference is all of our business. We begin by reflecting on what people reckon is ‘okay’ and what is ‘not okay’ within the workplace. We then offer a set of tools and behavioural frameworks to change workplace culture through interpersonal interventions. This can flow into wider workplace cultures creating social change. We do with using Forum theatre where participants are learning on their feet and embedding concepts in real-time.

ACTIVE BYSTANDER TRAINING

ACTIVE BYSTANDER

TRAINING

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1. Gain awareness of the barriers to bystander intervention.

2. Learn techniques to intervene with skill and finesse.

3. Be able to engage in ‘difficult conversations’ with greater

effectiveness.

4. Recognise the potential for social leadership to create

inclusive social norms.

KEY OUTCOMES DETAILS

● Workshop length

○ Half day (3-4 hours)

○ Full day (4-6 hours)

● 2 expert facilitators

● 10-25 participants

● Participant evaluation

ACTIVE BYSTANDER: PROGRAM INFORMATIONP O L Y K A L A

TOPICS COVERED● Intention & impact

● Personal & social barriers to intervention

● Direct & indirect intervention techniques

● Forum Theatre dynamic roleplay

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OUR EXPERIENCEP O L Y K A L A T R A I N I N G

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ANANTH GOPAL TOM HENDERSONCHYONNE

KRELTSZHEIM RACHEL DUBOIS

Ananth is a Harvard-trained facilitator, actor and geographer. He’s an associate artist with Melbourne Playback Theatre Company and teaches cultural geography at the Universities of Melbourne and Wollongong. He is a doctoral student at the Australian Centre of Cultural Environmental Research (Wollongong).

He combines theatrical flair and scholarly insight in his training and facilitation.

Chyonne is a facilitator, coach and qualified lawyer with over 16 years’ experience working with organisations across Australasia. She is an expert negotiator having completed training at Harvard’s Negotiation Institute (Harvard Law School). Her facilitation is attentive and artful, weaving together conceptual frameworks to help clients get a handle on their challenges and make a difference.

Tom is a Harvard-trained facilitator and graduate of the Groupwork Institute’s Advanced Diploma of Group Facilitation. He combines a decade of professional experience in media associations, politics and community organisations and is committed to bringing the best ideas and practice to where they are needed most.

Tom has a passion for working with people in an open and engaged environment.

Rachael has 14 years experience working across Australia and New Zealand as an actor, director, facilitator and teaching artist. She applies the tools of improvisation, acting technique, storytelling and play to encourage people to connect to themselves and their community authentically.

Rachael is the current Artistic Director of the Melbourne Playback Theatre Company.

POLYKALA TEAM

P O L Y K A L A T R A I N I N G

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MacDonnell Regional Council engaged Polykala to

develop an adaptive leadership practice within the

Community Services team. We worked with

Indigenous and non-Indigenous staff to address

long-standing challenges and develop a shared

language around workplace culture, initiative,

communication styles and accountability.

Organisational dynamics have now shifted toward

greater effectiveness and inclusivity of all voices.

MACDONNELL REGIONAL COUNCIL

Polykala designs and delivers the leadership

development and facilitation training components of

the University of Newcastle’s Ma & Morley

Scholarship program. This intensive session

introduces participants to the work of ethical

leadership trains participants in the art of facilitation

for leadership development and personal insights.

This training has been delivered to both staff from

the university as well as the scholars of the Ma &

Morley Scholarship program.

UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE

Polykala has designed range of leadership

development programs for the Australian Rural

Leadership Foundation, from multi-year adaptive

leadership development programs to short-form

interventions into existing programs. In particular,

Polykala delivered a program to the forestry industry

to assist them to collaborate more effectively across

organisations and regions. Our approach to ‘loss

aversion’ and change management ensured that

people were better equipped to have tough

conversations in an industry facing tough challenges.

AUSTRALIAN RURAL LEADERSHIP FOUNDATION

CASE STUDIES

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TRACK RECORDP O L Y K A L A

For the past eight years, Polykala has designed and delivered Leadership Development training for the local government, not-for-profit and education sectors.

Our work includes commissioned collaborations with City of Melbourne (Cultural Awareness for Frontline Staff), Cities of Ballarat and Hobsons Bay (Respect. It Starts with Me), Darebin City Council (Say No to Racism training) and Yarra City Council (Working with Pride). Our interactive and experiential training has been lauded and supported by the Victorian local government sector culminating in Polykala (along with the City of Yarra) being awarded the 2017 LG PRO Award for Excellence in the ‘Diversity & Inclusion’ category. In 2019, Polykala became the preferred training provider Whittlesea City Council and the City of Melbourne for their organisation-wide Diversity & Inclusion and Cultural Awareness training programs.

Polykala is also a preferred collaborating partner with leading national leadership training providers, including Leadership Victoria, Australian Rural Leadership Foundation and the Australia Council for the Arts.. Together we have delivered large, complex leadership development programs for a range of government, NFP and education sector clients.

We have ongoing relationships with key clients including:

● Local Government—Cities of Melbourne, Yarra, Moreland, Darebin, Hobsons Bay, Maribyrnong, Monash, Whittlesea, Port Phillip, Brimbank, Knox, Ballarat, Mornington Peninsula and Mitchell Shires and MacDonnell Regional Council (NT).

● State & Federal Government—South Australian Human Rights Commission, the Victorian & Commonwealth governments (Joint Engagement for the Victorian Regional Forest Agreements), Victoria Police and the Country Fire Authority.

● Institute of Public Administration Australia (IPAA)—South Australian and Victorian branches.

● Universities—University of Newcastle, Sydney University, Monash University, University of Wollongong & La Trobe University.

● International NGOs —Oxfam Australia and Plan International & IWDA.

● Australian Rural Leadership Foundation—Experiential leadership development in remote and regional areas.

● Creative Arts Institutions—We lead facilitators for the Australia Council for the Arts and have ongoing relationships with Melbourne Theatre Company and Melbourne Playback Theatre Company.

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Polykala specialise in working with the government, education, for-purpose and not-for-profit sectors.

Some of our clients include:

OUR CLIENTSP O L Y K A L A T R A I N I N G

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“It is better to fail in originality than to

succeed in imitation.”

Herman Melville

WANT TO WORK WITH US?

Get in touch

info@polykala.com

polykala.com