Community Conversations

1. Community Conversations

2. World Café - organizational change tool The World Cafe is a natural & effective way to host meaningful conversations that awaken collective wisdom & engage collaborative action.

3. Launching InclusiveEfforts ThroughCommunity ConversationsErik Carter Ph.D. Vanderbilt Kennedy Center

4. The Work of Erik Carter Inclusion Peer Mediated Instruction High School Transition/Post School Outcomes

5. Increasing the capacity and commitment of communities to meaningfully include children and adults with significant disabilities, as well as engaging new partners in these efforts. Here, he has focused his work on interventions that engage new partners (e.g., employers, parents, community leaders, congregations) in community change efforts.

6. = Community Conversations in action • The LINK Program • Parents Raising Taxpayers • Building Your Future

7. Crafting a new view • “ Instead of pouring knowledge into people's heads, we need to help them grind a new set of glasses, so they can see the world in a new way. That involves challenging the implicit assumptions that have shaped the way people have historically looked at things..”˜ John Seeley Brown

8. Challenges… It is hard to listen when you don’t have a sense of understanding the issue Not an out of the box thinker

9. Community Conversation:What’s It All About? …it is a way to bring a diverse set of community members together to collectively brainstorm strategies and resources that can be used to address a challenge facing the Community.

10. Talking Heads

11. There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about.Margaret Wheatley; writer and management consultant who studies organizational behavior

12. 4 Core Principles: 1. All communities possess unique opportunities, connections, resources and relationships Members within each community are the experts on the challenges that are most pressing, the solutions, strategies that will work best, and the most effective ways to enlist others in support of change Any group of community members who come together no matter how well connected an individual is – will learn of new resources, ideas by interacting with others who share different view points and life experiences Real change that lasts is most likely to come when ideas are based on locally-feasible strategies and approaches

13. Hosting a Community Conversation? It’s as Easy as … 1.Invite a diverse group of people2. Choose a few questions to guide the conversation 3. Jot down ideas as they emerge

15. Where do we hold the meeting? • FREE • Welcoming-Inviting-Functional • Comfortable • Informal • Community Centers/public rooms at the library/ coffee shops with a meeting room

16. Choosing Questions… • Simple and clear • Thought provoking • Generate energy • Surface unconscious assumptions • Focus inquiry • Open new possibilities

17. Questions function as open-handed invitations to creativity,calling forth that which doesn’t yet exist.Marilee Goldberg

18. The ConversationEncourage creative communication• Share thinking and experience• Encourage diverse ideas and perspectives• Listen to understand• Expect disagreement• Connect ideas• Listen together for patterns, insights and deeper questions

19. Café Etiquette • Focuson what matters • Contribute your thinking • Speak your mind and heart • Listen to understand • Link and Connect ideas • Listen together for insights and deeper questions • Play, Doodle, Draw writing on placemats & tablecloths is encouraged!! • Have FUN!!

21. After the Conversation Although hosting the initial Community Conversation is significant it is really just a spring board to gain long term community momentum.

22. Resources • Launching Inclusive Efforts Through Community Conversations http://www.waisman.wisc.edu/cedd/pdfs/products/community/LaunchingInclusiveEfforts.pdf • A Memphis Community Conversation http://vkc.mc.vanderbilt.edu/tennesseeworks/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/MemphisCCBrief.pdf