Dialogue Facilitator Training
May 14 and May 15, 2002, 1-7 p.m.
UAW-Ford-LTC Training Center
1155 Bible Road
Lima, Ohio
Training led by Patricia Romney, Ph.D.
Romney and Associates, Inc.
THE WONDER OF DIALOGUE:
TRAINING FOR DIALOGUE FACILITATORS
While debate and controversy characterize much of our social discourse, ongoing local and global conflicts call for new collaborative approaches. Dialogue is an approach designed to help people work toward common understanding by means of transformative conversations. Dialogue is "good talk" that helps us to discover new questions and new solutions to the challenges of living together in a democratic society.
Civic dialogue helps us to question "what kind of society we are and what kind of society . . . we aspire to be." The Common Threads Project of The Council for the Arts of Greater Lima is offering an opportunity for community members to become trained as dialogue facilitators for our upcoming theater project in which we will use the arts as a catalyst to explore the issues that challenge our community.
This two day interactive training will teach participants the skills of civic dialogue. The skills learned will be useful in community and organizational settings and will specifically explore how the arts can provide a catalyst for dialogue on important social issues.
Through presentations, demonstrations, experiential exercises and role play, participants will learn how to facilitate constructive and transformative conversations.
Participants who take this training will:
* learn the principles of constructive dialogue.
* learn to facilitate dialogues centered in curiosity and respect.
* learn several dialogue approaches and techniques
* learn to use dialogue in family, community and organizational settngs.
FACILITATORS' CRITERIA
Attitudes:
* Dialogue facilitators shuld be patient, good listeners.
* Dialogue facilitators must be willing to surface and suspend their own assumptions and judgments in the interest of fostering participants' examination of their own experiences and perspectives.
* Dialogue facilitators must maintain and model a spirit of active curiosity and respect.
* Dialogue facilitators must be multipartial. The must be "on the side" of everyone engaged in the dialogue.
Commitments:
* Dialogue facilitators must be willing to attend both training dates on May 14th and May 15th, 2002.
* Dialogue facilitators must agree to serve as facilitators for the upcoming theater production in the Fall of 2002.
* Dialogue facilitators must be available and committed, as volunteers, to employ these skills within their spheres of influence - their own sectors and their own community.
