Two day facilitation training for Agencies on Community Conversations (September 27th & 28th 2010)
As part of our funding from the Equality and Human Rights Commission we are pleased to be running a 2-day Community Conversations facilitation training for agencies and organisations in the London area: see flyer. We are particularly keen to share our learning with other community mediation agencies as conflict resolution skills are a key part of the model. We want to ensure that participants come from an organisations that are already working with diverse groups, or poised to do so, and that will be able to use the Community Conversations model in their setting. The training will cover both the Getting-to-know-you model (GTKY) and the Dialogue on Difference or Difficult Topics (DDDT) and will be very practical. Participants will need conflict resolution experience and some facilitation experience. For more information please see our Learning Document or contact Ros if you would like a place. Ros@conflictandchange.co.uk 0208 552 2050
Planning meetings and partnership with Councillor Sharaf Mahmood
We have long believed in the contribution we could make to help other organisations make their meetings participatory and inclusive! We have a wealth of experience in running meetings of all shapes and sizes in a way that involves everyone and is at the same time is focused and positive. We have tried and tested our two Community Conversations models and we are continuing to develop and shape the ways we work to fit in with different contexts. For instance our inter-generational Community Conversations have tended to draw on activities used by our Children and Young People’s team.
We know that very often a range of meetings from small Tennant and Residents Associations and Parent Teachers’ Associations all the way to large public meetings can have difficulty in being positive, getting everyone to contribute and for the meetings to be productive and energetic. From experience we know that changing the usual format where one person speaks at a time to introducing various sizes of groups from pairs, threes, fours etc can make a dramatic difference. There are also many other tricks!
We are delighted that we are now being turned to for advice in structuring meetings. This is because we see a lot of potential in the meetings that are being run all across the borough to build dialogue, understanding and participation as a way of strengthening communities and preventing destructive conflict.
Initial meeting with the faith leaders
The inter generational event in Green Street East.
Consultation with Maeve McGoldrick, Community Links Campaign Coordinator
This Consultation was firstly by phone, then email and then in person – we can be flexible! Maeve has written below about the impact of our consultation on the meeting she ran. We were delighted that Maeve had the confidence to make last minute adjustments to the high profile meeting although the programme had already been set in the more traditional format.
“I asked Ros for help on how to make the stakeholder meeting on the 21st April for planning activity on the European Year of combating poverty more participatory. The original agenda of the meeting was the usual one of speakers followed by Q and A but I was able to structure it differently at the last minute and it got people thinking and participating a lot more that they would have done otherwise.
I met a few people a couple of days later who volunteered some real positive comments about the structure in particular: how we set the agenda, how we set the tables (round small tables), how we got the small working groups to really engage and participate. They commented that they came away very satisfied with the meeting.
We gave 5 minutes for the tables to come up with one question for the speakers but it all overran as they had so much to say!! This is the sort of buzz that these meetings should be all about. I saw such value in making it a two way process and in the future will give much more time for audience response and involvement.”
Consultation with Anne Jones and Tracy Cole from Merton & Sutton Mediation
Anne Jones (Coordinator) and Tracy Cole (Casework Manager) from Merton & Sutton Mediation came to visit Conflict and Change on 8th June to get advice on using the Community Conversations models in their area. They have funding to work in a neighbourhood to help build good links and relationships between local people and the organisations and groups in the locality. Anne had been a participant in the Community Conversation that Ros and Ruth Musgrave facilitated at the London Mediators Day on 24th April and she felt inspired by the way the model fuses skills that their organisation already has - mediation and facilitation skills.
In a meeting with Ros Southern, C&C Community Conversations worker, they explored the the different types models we use and tips in succesful outreach and recruitment and in the simple evaluation tools we us. Later they had a conversation with Ruth Musgrave, C&C Project Coordinator and Sarjoh Kamara Aziz , Community Development Worker to hear their experience and tips in linking groups and organisations in the community and ways of supporting groups to do work and activities together.
Tracy said after this meeting: “For me it was about how to bring the process together from start to end, how to encourage people to come along, to keep people interested so that the community conversation is not the end of it and there is going to be a progression to keep people enthusiastic and interested.”
Anne said : “ What struck me is what it takes from mediation and is a different way of using some skills that I have learned as mediator: summarising, reflecting back, reframing. It also has more immediately positive contexts, focusing on positive especially in the “ getting to know you” conversations. Conversations on difficult topics seem to have much more in common with mediation around disputes. It is a very interesting thing that we would like to be using in our project.”
At Conflict & Change we believe that agencies like Mediation Services which already have staff and volunteers with conflict resolution skills are ideally placed to use Community Conversations to widen their repertoire of bridge building work in their community. This is why part of our current funding by the Equality and Human Rights Commission includes a 2 day training for London mediation agencies on the practical skills to run Community Conversations. This training will take place in September 2010 and participation is free of charge. Find more information here.
