Staff Retreat Workshops and Planning Sessions

Staff Retreat Workshops and Planning Sessions

With the St. Louis Education Fund / 2 half-day sessions

The St. Louis Education Fund has a nimble and collaborative team that works together daily to drive equitable outcomes for students in the St. Louis Public Schools District. To help support the team’s work, Public Design Bureau designed and facilitated two collaborative workshops, run during staff retreats. These sessions were designed to support the team to reflect together, recognize strengths and assets, prioritize key areas for change, and move quickly towards action. This process included: 

Process + Outputs

  • Design and facilitation of two interactive workshops with the Fund staff. These workshops were designed to support the staff in understanding each other’s experiences and learning from the strengths and assets that support the process of program design.
  • Development of a visual map showing the process of program design and implementation. This map, showing the journey of a program from first idea to pilot implementation, helped the team see and reflect on the strengths and the challenges they face. Once the phases and steps were outlined, each staff member was able to share their experiences at some of the critical moments, which exposed opportunities for greater collaboration and more efficient work together.
  • Co-creation of ideas to address challenging and critical moments in program delivery, with prioritization of those ideas by the team. Guided by discussion and decision making in the workshop, the staff was able to take these prioritized ideas and put them into practice in their work.
  • Reflection and evaluation on the process and tools. Nearly four months later, PDB and the Fund team reconvened to walk through the tools and processes that had been developed from the earlier sessions. The team evaluated what had worked and what they had found challenging, planning to refine for use again during the next semester.

These sessions allowed the Fund staff to collectively understand their work, and pointed them towards strategic actions for greater collaboration and impact.