Community Engagement - From Debate to Dialogue

Changemakers

Virtual Workshop Hours

Group Coaching Session

Engagement practitioners are experiencing significant changes in how we engage communities. Among other patterns, there is a growing sense of polarization, intolerance, and hate which can cause significant harm, fear, and can reduce the desire for groups to work together.

At the same time, we know that community engagement is a pathway to building equity. We need to engage authentically. We need to centre the voices of people who are closest to the issues we're working to solve. We need to work together. Diverse perspectives are important for solution-making, and finding ways to break the divide are necessary at local scales to find ways of moving forward. We have to create opportunities for dialogue—for understanding.

The world needs you. We wish to invite you to consider your role and empower you in creating spaces for healthy dialogue. Join us to:

Learn techniques to help you navigate polarisation in real time when facilitating engagement; create shared realities (or shared language) between those holding different perspectives and increase the chances of healthy dialogue.
Consider how to build relationships and reduce barriers to engagement
Frame polarized situations to create the conditions to move from debate to dialogue
Increase your knowledge of consensus-based and dialogue practices

Workshop Pre-Learning

Reflect on your experiences with debate and dialogue to prepare you for the content within the workshop and clarify your learning goals.

3 Hour Virtual Workshop

Explore the theory and practice of moving from debate to dialogue

See examples, experience practical tools, and think through how you could apply lessons learned in your work

Work with peers to brainstorm solutions to your pressing engagement challenges

1-Hour Group Coaching Session

Deepen your understanding of the workshop content

Bring questions and work through your ideas and solutions with peers

Understand the trends in community engagement - Explore the trends in community engagement—see what’s emerging across the field and make sense of how engagement practitioners can respond.

Create the enabling environment for dialogue - Take stock of what barriers your community members are facing and what you can do to support their involvement. It’s much easier to build energy and momentum when there’s a sense of hope; when something feels possible. When you’re not needing to fight or defend. Learn ways to re-frame a situation to invite people in and engage in dialogue rather than debate.

Foster spaces for relationship-building, listening, and empathy - Through the process of relating, people can move from advocacy mode into dialogue mode. Learn facilitation techniques to support active listening, awareness-building, and reflection to build empathy.

Develop your understanding of dialogue-based practices - Explore how different methods of engagement can be used to enable dialogue and discernment towards a shared goal. Learn ways to make consensus-based group decisions and check levels of agreement among a group.

Registration for this session is now open and limited to 70 learners to ensure a dynamic learning experience. Registration includes pre-workshop learning, a 3-hour virtual workshop, and a one-hour small group coaching session with participants. It also includes membership in the Tamarack Institutes Learning community.

Participants will be sent a pre-workshop package. Zoom meeting details will be sent in advance. All participants will have access to a workshop resource page with slides, virtual workspaces, and all linked resources.

Post-workshop, participants will be invited to register for a post-event coaching session. At this interactive session, small groups of workshop participants will be encouraged to share their emerging questions and receive further support in translating the workshop’s learning into action.

Can’t attend the workshop, but love the content? Get in touch with Stephanie to learn more about how you can bring a custom version of this workshop to your organization or collaborative

single registration

$275

group registration

$225

tamarack member

$225

CEP, CBB, CCT, and CBYF members are eligible for the group rate.

Lisa Attygalle

In her role at Tamarack, Lisa works with cities, organizations, collaboratives, and funders to build meaningful community-engaged processes. Over the last ten years, her work has focused on creating authentic engagement strategies and training staff teams, teaching and writing about innovative engagement methodologies, and facilitating collaborative processes to make decisions and work together to solve our most pressing issues. She cares deeply about shifting power, extending trust, and bringing creativity to community change work. Lisa advocates for simplicity in structures, frameworks, and design and loves integrating arts-based practices in community initiatives.

Learn more about Lisa

community engagement:
from debate to dialogue