Background Information on Conducting a Deliberative Forum

1. Background Information on Conducting a Deliberative Forum AEC8713 Spring 2013

2. Outline • Examine dialogue and deliberation (D & D) • How D & D is used • Importance of diversity of people involved • The public deliberation process: Key elements • What public deliberation produces • Your role as moderator

3. Dialogue and Deliberation: What are They? • Dialogue: • A process that allows people, usually in small groups, to share their perspectives and experiences with one another about difficult issues we tend to debate about or avoid entirely • It’s not about winning an argument or coming to an agreement, but about understanding and learning. • Dispels stereotypes, builds trust and enables people to be open to perspectives that are very different from their own.

4. Dialogue and Deliberation:What are They? • Deliberation: • Closely related process with a different emphasis. • Emphasizes the use of logic and reasoning to make better decisions • Dialogue lays the groundwork for deliberation. The trust, mutual understanding and relationships that are built during dialogue enable participants to deliberate more effectively, and to make better decisions.

5. How the NIF Defines Deliberation • Public deliberation is a means by which citizens make tough choices about basic purposes and directions for their communities and their country. It is a way of reasoning and talking together.

6. How is D&D Used? • For a variety of reasons:  • to resolve conflicts and bridge divides; • to build understanding about complex issues; • to foster innovative solutions to problems and launch action; • to reach agreement on or recommendations about policy decisions; • used as a means to strengthen democracy in communities.

7. Diversity of Participation is Encouraged • Why? • BECAUSE . . . no one person or small group of people has all the experience and insight needed to decide what is best. That is why it is essential for an inclusive group of citizens to combine their perspectives.

8. General Guidelines about PD • The moderator guides the deliberation yet remains impartial. Citizens engage one another not the moderator. • Everyone is encouraged to participate. No one or two individuals dominate. • Everyone understands that this is not a debate. • The talk is deliberative rather than argumentative.

9. The Public Deliberative Process: Key Elements

10. General Guidelines • The deliberation focuses on the options. • The major choices or options are considered and the trade-offs are examined. • Listening is as important as talking. • Everyone works toward making a decision about how he or she will act on a problem or what policy they think best for the community

11. Steps in the Deliberative Process • Prep work • Get to know the issue, the stakeholders that are affected most, and your participants. • Introductions • Introduce yourself before proceeding. • Make participants feel welcomed and appreciated • Help prepare them for what’s ahead

12. Steps in the Deliberative Process(continued) • Establish/present ground rules • Ground rules are an important part of deliberative forums • You may choose to either present a set of ground rules to participants and ask for their changes, additions, and approval, or you may ask participants to come to some agreement of rules that will make them feel safe and productive.

13. Ground Rules: Some Possibilities • “listen carefully and with respect” • “one person speaks at a time” • “please speak for yourself, not for a group” • “seek to understand rather than persuade” • “please turn off cell phones (or place on silent)”

14. Steps in the Deliberative Process (continued) • Sharing personal perspectives • Hearing from everyone at the table is a key principle in both dialogue and deliberation • Exploring a range of views • it is important to make sure the group explores a balanced range of views • Analysis and reasoned argument • Deliberation is characterized by critical listening, reasoned argumentation, and thoughtful decision-making • Deciding on action steps or recommendations • It is vital that participants understand how the process they just participated in will make an impact—or are supported and guided in making an impact on the issue themselves

15. Ending a Forum • Before ending a forum, it is usually a good idea to take a few minutes to reflect both individually and as a group on what has been accomplished. • These types of questions have been useful: • How has your thinking changed about the issue? • How has your thinking changed about other people’s views? • What didn’t we work through? • What do we still need to talk about? • How can we use what we learned in this forum?

16. Summary • All these steps help ensure that participants are able to create the collective wisdom that is essential for the development of sound, achievable decisions and policies, as well as the common ground and buy-in that is essential for effective, sustainable action to take place. • FINAL ITEM: Have participants complete post-forum questionnaire

17. Your Role as a Moderator

18. Your Role as Moderator • Draw out different perspectives to ensure a complete and balanced discussion. • Help them weigh the “pros” (positive consequences) and “cons” (negative consequences) of different options . As such, it is important to be sure that both are fully aired. • Intervene with questions that move the deliberations toward a choice but always stop short of pressing for a consensus or agreement on a particular solution. • Help summarize key points as needed to help keep the group moving towards the articulation of specific actions, programs or policies they feel may be needed to address the issue.

19. What Experienced Moderators Say is Important • Move the conversation beyond sharing the stories to looking at costs and consequences of the options. • Examine the positive aspects of all options and make sure these are considered and understood as well. • Stay with deliberation until participants have identified the conflicts among the approaches and have identified the option they feel is best. • Recognize that forums seldom end in total agreement or total disagreement. Forums frequently end in a discovery of a shared sense of purpose or recognition of how interests are interconnected.

20. Tips on Moderating • The moderator should not constantly intervene • The essence of good moderating is to encourage people to engage one another. • The responsibility for doing the work of deliberation is the group’s responsibility and the moderator should make that clear from the beginning. • Above all, the moderator must remain impartial so that the group can do its job.

21. What Public Deliberation Produces

22. Key Outcomes of Public Deliberation • Changes in People • People who are better able to get a handle on issues; that is, they are able to put particular issues in a larger context and make connections between different issues — all of which helps them understand what the issues really mean. • Involvement • They report becoming more involved in civic activities. • These changes are possible because deliberation seems to have the power to get people to take the first step to civic Involvement • Americans use deliberative dialogue not only to understand issues but to decide whether they should act publicly.

23. What Public Deliberation Produces • Civic responsibility • Making choices together in deliberation also promotes civic responsibility. • Human beings take more responsibility for what they have participated in choosing than for what someone has chosen for them. • New Knowledge • Deliberation produces public knowledge by synthesizing many different experiences and perspectives into a shared framework of meaning. Note that deliberation does more than tolerate differences; it uses them them !

24. National Issues Forum & Every Day Democracy: Check Them Out • http://www.nifi.org/index.aspx • http://www.everyday-democracy.org/en/index.aspx