| Dr Vivien Twyford |
Director and Consultant, |
Twyford Consulting (Australia) |
Dr Twyford is founder, consultant and director of Twyford Consulting an organisation she has operated from 1988 to 2006. During that time it has grown from a one person consultancy to a company with 10 employees. In 2006 she restructured Twyfords to include four partners.
Dr Twyford's strengths lie in her ability to engage people in decision-making in a variety of situations both internal and external to organisations. She has a unique style of facilitation, is an accredited mediator and has taught applied communication and media skills for many years.
Developing a personal specialty in the area of community engagement, Dr Twyford has designed and implemented community information, consultation, engagement and participation programs around some very sensitive and controversial projects. She has also assisted clients with the development or review of community engagement policies, practices and procedures and has supervised the development of a number of community engagement manuals or handbooks. In 2006, Dr Twyford co-authored a book “Beyond Public Meetings; Connection community engagement with decision-making”.
Through working with a large number of government agencies over her consulting career, Dr Twyford has an in-depth knowledge of the government sector at the national, state, regional and local levels in Australia , New Zealand , North America and the UK . She has assisted both government and private sector clients to develop and implement community engagement processes, facilitated forums where participants have different and competing agendas, mediated disputes, as well as delivering a range of training programs to staff and elected representatives. She is currently mentoring a number of practitioners to support them in applying their learning in practice.
Dr Twyford holds a Bachelor of Arts (Sociology and Philosophy), a Graduate Diploma in Commerce, (Management), a Certificate IV in Assessment and Workplace Training and the IAP2 Certificate in Public Participation. She was elected International President of the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) in 2004. She was the inaugural President of IAP2's Australasian Chapter and is a member of the Australasian Facilitators Network. She is a Fellow of the University of Wollongong .
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