What are the best practices for creating a safe and inclusive space for community dialogue?

It's also really important to consider what the participants goals might be too. What are some of the benefits that the community will see as a result of their participation and how will you know if its successful from their perspective?

Etablir une charte de bienveillance et la relire régulierement, proposer a la communauté d'améliorer de facon continue la charte

Your purpose, intention, and community should inform your format. What format would feel more inclusive and safe for them? You can survey the community for their preferred format or (and) ask a select group of community leaders their opinions.

The tool that has become my go-to method for establishing ground rules and norms for dialogue in a group is facilitating the creation of Working Agreement together. Facilitating the creation of working agreement for a community dialogue can start with a simple question: "What working agreements could we agree on to make this dialogue safe and effective?" In a bigger group, the participants can start the discussion on working agreement in small groups. Each small group can then bring their suggestions for working agreements to the whole group. Every idea that the whole group consents to is added to the working agreement. It helps to make the working agreement visible in the space where the dialogue is happening.

The purpose and goals go hand-in-hand with ground rules. If your purpose is to gain a shared understanding of a particular issue, then one of the ground rules might be "Listen to understand, not to respond."

Encourager la Confidentialité et la Sécurité Protection de la vie privée : Garantir la confidentialité des partages personnels pour renforcer la confiance au sein du groupe. Espace de non-jugement : Créer une atmosphère de non-jugement où chacun se sent en sécurité pour partager ses pensées et sentiments sans crainte de stigmatisation ou de répercussion.

Ensuring diversity among the co-facilitation group is key, both for the actual facilitation and then in the synthesis and analysis of the output from the facilitated sessions and activities.

Closing the loop with participants is critical… and it doesn’t have to just be a one off activity to close-the-loop. I recommend an initial acknowledgement and thank you note (perhaps with some early insights), then dropping another note to participants when something actually changes as a result of their contributions.

Recording a session that you are facilitating, and then watching it back can be a great way to reflect and improve. While it’s a little off-putting sometimes to watch yourself back, the improvement you can achieve is worth it.

Getting feedback from participants is crucial to your own evaluation and learning. Asking something as simple as "What did you like best about this session?" or "What's one thing you would have liked to see done differently?" can give you great insight as to how you can improve your skills as a facilitator. You never know how someone else's perspective might enlighten you!