Study Circles

Part of a larger community program, a study circle is a group of 8 to 12 people from different backgrounds and viewpoints who meet several times to talk about a critical public issue. In a study circle, everyone has an equal voice, and people try to understand one another's views. They do not have to agree with one another. The idea is to share concerns and look for ways to make things better. A neutral facilitator helps the group look at different views and makes sure the discussion goes well.

Sustained Dialogue

Sustained Dialogue is a process for transforming and building the relationships that are essential to democratic political and economic practice. SD is not a problem-solving workshop; it is a sustained interaction to transform and build relationships among members of deeply conflicted groups so that they may effectively deal with practical problems. As a process that develops over time through a sequence of meetings, SD seems to move through a series of recognizable phases including a deliberative "scenario-building" stage and an "acting together" stage.

The Understanding Process

Experience has demonstrated that the Understanding Process is valuable as a mode of prevention as well as intervention in existing conflicts and is being used effectively in: improving public conversations about controversial issues, team and community building, leadership development, creative approaches to problems and issues, and working with groups as well as interpersonal dyadic communication.

Touchstones Discussions

Touchstones grew out of more than twenty years of experience with the successes and challenges of the seminar program at Saint John's College, in Annapolis, Maryland. The Touchstones approach to leading discussion groups is grounded in a series of reflections on the nature of collaboration; the relationship between texts and personal experience; the ways in which authority, expertise, and power impede mutual cooperation; and the obstacles that hinder the examination of our most fundamental assumptions about the world in which we live.

Resource Link: http://www.touchstones.org

Victim-Offender Mediation (VOM)

Victim Offender Mediation is a face-to-face meeting, in the presence of a trained mediator, between the victim of a crime and the person who committed that crime. The practice is also called victim-offender dialogue, victim-offender conferencing, victim-offender reconciliation, or restorative justice dialogue. In some practices, the victim and the offender are joined by family and community members or others.

Web Lab's Small Group Dialogue Process

Web Lab's Small Group Dialogue (SGD) Process is a more perfect discussion tool built to foster intimate, high-quality online exchanges. By limiting group size and lifespan, Small Group Dialogue emphasizes each member's value, encouraging a sense of belonging and an investment in frequent visits. The result is a structured experience requiring minimal intervention, and an astonishing signal-to-noise ratio unmatched in any conventional online dialogue model.

Wisdom Council

The Wisdom Council is a newly invented structural approach to achieving genuine democracy in cities, unions, associations, counties, or nations ... and even in corporations. No matter how many people are in the system, it structures a creative, thoughtful, system-wide conversation about the most pressing issues. It facilitates everyone to form a unanimous "We the People" viewpoint.

World Cafe Method, Metaphor, and Community Foundation

Juanita Brown and David Isaacs from Whole Systems Associates use the model of the cafe setting to create a warm, inviting environment in which people can converse. Participants gather informally at small tables and are encouraged to map out the ideas generated from conversation onto the paper table cloths covering the tables.

Resource Link: http://www.theworldcafe.com