Become a Circle Leader
Circle Facilitation Leadership Programme
If you’re here, it’s because something in you already knows:
🪶You’re meant to bring people together.
🪶You’re meant to hold space.
🪶 You’re meant to help others feel seen, connected, and supported.
A Transformational Training for Those Called to Build Community
Welcome to the Circle Leader Training—a life-changing, live learning experience for those who feel called to create meaningful community in a disconnected world.
This is far more than a practical skills course.
This is a calling.
A path.
A craft that shapes not only the groups you lead, but the person you become through leading them.
Who This Training Is For
This course is designed for future and emerging circle leaders who feel a pull to:
✨ Create spaces of belonging
✨ Foster deep conversations and shared humanity
✨ Guide groups through connection, healing, or collective reflection
✨ Support communities defined by identity, interest, or experience
✨ Step into leadership that is ethical, grounded, and heart-centered
Whether you dream of leading women’s circles, men’s circles, grief circles, creativity circles, workplace circles —
the core skill of circle facilitation applies to all demographics and all shared interests.
Perhaps you’re totally new to circle hosting, but know this is your calling. Or maybe you’ve started a circle and now realise there’s lots more to know and practice. And could be that you’ve been running circles for a while and would love to have a space of your own to lean into, learn some new tips and deepen your art.
There is not one kind of person who makes a great circle leader. On circle trainings, we’ve had coaches, counsellors, psychotherapists, charity workers, sound therapists, movement therapists, environmental activists, yoga teachers, meditation teachers, sleep consultants, school teachers, parents…
If you’ve felt the nudge, the whisper, the inner knowing: “I’m meant to do this…” you’re in exactly the right place.
Grab a drink because this isn’t a quick read. The information here is to help you know that you’ve found your home and your people for your circle holders journey.
What Makes This Training Different
Circle leadership isn’t just a dry technique — it’s an honour, a responsibility, a beautiful skill and an art.
In this comprehensive training, you will learn both the practical skills, the ethical foundations and gain the embodied experience that make a circle not just safe… but transformative.
Together, we will explore:
✓ The Ethical Principles of Circle Hosting
How to lead with integrity, honour, compassion, and clarity.
Boundaries, safety, trauma-awareness, nervous-system friendly and cultural appropriateness.
✓ The Core Skills of Facilitation
The practical tools that allow you to guide flow, navigate challenges, and create experiences where everyone feels included and seen. This includes managing group dynamics and preparing a schedule that works.
✓ The Art of Holding Space
Presence. Listening. Energy. Emotional stewardship.
The intangible skills that mark a social get together from a true circle, where you feel seen, heard and witnessed.
✓ Circle Design + Structure
Step-by-step processes for planning, hosting, and marketing circles with confidence.
✓ Real-Life Application Across Contexts
Learn how to adapt circle methods to your unique audience or shared interest, and different funding models so that your circle is accessible to the right people.
How the Training Works
This is a live, immersive experience designed to grow both your confidence and your capacity.
Live Group Sessions with the Founder
Be guided through the foundations of circle facilitation, experience being held in circle regularly and practice being a circle leader step-by-step. (For the Monday circle, 12 live weekly sessions of 1.5 hours each; for Saturday circle, 5 live fortnightly sessions of 3 hours each plus additional evening session and reunion of 1.5 hours.)
Guest Talks from Diverse Facilitators
Hear from practitioners with different backgrounds from the founder, such as dual heritage and male leaders.
Expand your toolkit. Broaden your understanding. Learn from the many ways circles can be held.
Community Support + Practice Opportunities
You’ll have chances to practice facilitation, receive feedback, and build relationships with fellow future facilitators.
A Certificate of Completion
Celebrate your commitment and step forward with confidence as a certified circle leader.
Tanya Buck, Health & Wellness Coach, talking about the 2025 training:
“I’ve surprised myself with how much this training has meant to me. I have felt very aligned with it and can see how it can be used in its entirety but also how many elements can be inserted into various other parts of my work. I’ve found it very nourishing.
I’ve enjoyed seeing the options for each section of a circle modelled to us and participating in them so that I can get a feel for how they might work and which skills I might want to investigate further and perfect.
I particularly loved the listening partnerships and have talked to lots of people about them as well as introducing them to my circle to great success.
A deep, nourishing and supportive training to walk you through all aspects of circle holding, with all aspects modelled, great resources and a very accessible, highly experienced leader.”
Helen Goddard, Reiki Master and Movement Therapist, talking about the 2024 training (different format over a weekend, but similar content)
Gail Shakespeare, Yoga Teacher, Circle Facilitator, Cold Water Leader, talking about the 2025 training:
“I loved taking part in the circle facilitator course! Tessa was very supportive, knowledgeable and approachable. Since the training I am now hosting a monthly women’s circle which is incredibly fulfilling for me and the ladies who attend. I have also been able to use the skills I learned from Tessa to improve my other yoga classes, retreats and also my cold water immersion days that I host.”
What You’ll Learn
Understanding Circle Facilitation:
Key principles of circle facilitation: inclusion, active listening, and holding space.
Key components of circle time: opening, settling, guidelines, introducing a topic, integration and closing.
How to create an intentional space, where with non-judgmental and confidentiality participants feel safe enough to share.
Practical Skills for Facilitating Circles:
How to guide a group through the circle process.
Tools for managing group dynamics and encouraging participation.
Techniques for managing difficult conversations or conflicts that may arise.
Consider the role of cycles (e.g. circadian, lunar, seasonal) and rites of passage in circletime
Building Trust and Safety:
Methods for establishing trust within the circle, ensuring that participants feel heard and respected.
Approaches to creating an environment where participants feel safe to open up, even on sensitive topics.
Using embodiment practices to work with the nervous system to enable sharing.
Ethical Considerations and Boundaries:
How to maintain ethical boundaries while facilitating.
Understanding the facilitator’s role in maintaining neutrality and avoiding bias.
Communicating your core values and managing expectations.
Practical Application and Case Studies:
Real-world examples of circles in various settings for different demographics and interests (e.g. community building, conflict resolution, LGBTQIA+ support, new mums, menopause).
Strategies for adapting circle facilitation to suit different contexts and needs.
Logistics like finding the right venue and what to charge.
Please email Tessa to ask for the 12-session Course Curriculum.
Additional info
Dates
Choose your home circle - either Monday afternoons or Saturday afternoons
Monday circle - weekly 12.30-2pm
Mondays 13, 20, 27 April, 4, 11, 18 May (half term break on 25th), 1, 8, 22, 29 June
Saturdays 13 June (special evening circle 7-8.30pm) and 12 September (reunion 2.30-4.30)
Saturday circle - fortnightly 3-6pm (half hour break)
Saturday 18 April, 2, 16 May, 6, 13 (special evening circle 7-8.30pm only), 20 June, 12 September (reunion 3-4.30pm only)
This is a live, experiential training, not one to catch up on recordings. When you sign up, you commit to your home circle. A one-off swap to the other circle may be available for a particular date that you know in advance that you cannot attend. (The training is run once a year. In exceptional circumstances, places may be transferred to the next year only.)
Guest talks with diverse facilitators (e.g. dual heritage, male facilitator) will be additional to these dates as a bonus resource (and recordings available where the guest agrees.)
Why is the course this long? Having taught a number of facilitator trainings, experience shows that this length covers the essential and important content and skills for someone to confidently run an excellent circle. If you’re not sure if you’re ready to commit to this length of training, you are very welcome on the Foundation workshop. If you then book onto the Circle Leader Training, you will be refunded your Foundation workshop fee if you book within two months of the workshop date.
Resources
Having Tessa’s book Circle Holding: A Practical Guide to Facilitating Talking Circles is recommended but not essential
Additional resources will be provided like example schedules for circles with timings, example themed plan.
Listening Partnerships will be encouraged during the training with other participants and homework is to practice the skills that you are learning.
Certificate
A certificate of attendance is available on completion of the workshop.
Terms & Conditions can be found here for all trainings.
Meet Your Course Leader: Tessa
Tessa brings over 20 years of experience in embodiment and somatic practice, rooted in her long-standing career as a yoga teacher. Her work is grounded, intuitive, trauma-aware, and deeply informed by the wisdom of the body.
For the past 10 years, she has been devoted to rites-of-passage facilitation, guiding individuals and groups through meaningful thresholds with presence, compassion, and skill. Her ceremonies and circles are known for their depth, safety, and ability to reconnect people to themselves and to community.
“I ran my first circle because I really wanted to attend one and there wasn’t one in my area. My vision was to have a community that my daughters would grow up with, seeing people in meaningful connection as totally normal. Since then, I’ve run pregnancy, new mum, perimpenopause, puberty circles and more. THIS is what was missing in my life as a young adult and I’ve never looked back.”
Tessa is also formally trained in trauma-informed yoga and restorative practice/meditation, allowing her to guide groups with an attuned awareness of the nervous system and a commitment to ethical space-holding.
Her leadership weaves together:
Embodied wisdom
Somatic awareness
Trauma-informed principles
Ritual, symbolism, and cyclical understanding
A grounded, heart-centred approach to community
Across her work, Tessa is dedicated to creating spaces where people feel held, seen, and deeply connected—and she brings this devotion into every aspect of the Circle Leader Training. She is the co-author of Circle Holding: A Practical Guide to Facilitating Talking Circles and co-host of the Circle Holding Podcast.
This book is essential reading… Julia and Tessa are wise and encouraging guides
~ Juno Magazine, Autumn 2024
It’s beautiful, powerful and pretty essential if you want to either start your journey creating circles or want to hone your craft.
~ Jenny Burrell, Founder of Burrell Education
By the End of the Training, You Will…
✨ Feel confident and prepared to lead circles of your own
✨ Understand how to create spaces of trust, depth, and shared humanity
✨ Have a grounded framework for ethical, embodied leadership
✨ Carry a toolkit of practical facilitation skills
✨ Feel connected to a supportive network of fellow leaders
✨ Know how to adapt the circle format to any community you feel called to serve
You won’t just know how to lead circles—
you’ll feel ready, confident and passionate.
If You Feel the Call… It’s for a Reason
Some people talk about building community.
Some people long for deeper connection.
But some—very few—are called to create it.
If that’s you, then this training is not just an opportunity.
It’s the beginning of your path.
Your leadership matters.
Your presence matters.
Your calling matters.
Join us, and begin the work you were meant for.
Enrollment Now Open
Step into the role you were born to play.
Become a circle leader.
Change lives—including your own.
Are you ready?
Investment
Best Value - Pay in Full
£975. One payment.
3 Installments
£340. 3 payments over 3 months.
6 Installments
£175. 6 payments over 6 months.