Sustained Dialogue Institute December Virtual Training Series, Register Now!

NCDD members, The Sustained Dialogue Institute, are hosting a three-part virtual training series in December 2024 to teach participants how to facilitate the Sustained Dialogue® process, a proven method for addressing divides and fostering collaborative solutions in communities. Workshops will cover topics like building trust through dialogue, active listening, equitable facilitation, and creating actionable plans to resolve conflicts. Sessions are held on Fridays (Dec. 6, 13, and 20) from 1–5 PM EST via Zoom, with materials provided in advance. Participants will gain practical skills to co-facilitate dialogue groups and join a supportive network of practitioners addressing complex issues in diverse settings. Registration is required, and space is limited to 46 participants. Register and learn more in the blog post below!

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Release: December Virtual Sustained Dialogue Training

Learn to use Sustained Dialogue to create safer communities and better spaces to change the conversation around rancorous divides. Register here!

Each 4-hour session begins at 1:00pm EST (10:00am PST, 11:00am MST) and ends at 5:00pm. 

Friday, December 6th, 2024 - Workshop 1:

• What is Dialogue? When does it work?
• Turning Strangers Into Coalitions: Using a Relational Lens for Facilitation and Understanding Conflict
• Exploring Two Lenses for Equity for Facilitators: Social Identities and/or Experience with Systems

Friday, December 13th, 2024 - Workshop 2:

• How to do Stage 1 (how to recruit people and build space for successful dialogue);
• Stage 2 Skills: Active Listening Pyramid of Success;
• Asking Strong Questions in Sustained Dialogue® Facilitation Part 1

Friday, December 20th, 2024 - Workshop 3:

• Asking Strong Questions Part 2: Debunking Skills
• Dealing with Power in the Room: Equitable Facilitation in hostile, invasive, or invalidating moments
• How to Lead a Community Root Cause Analysis (Stage 3 of SD)
• How to do Stage 4's action planning

Are you and a co-facilitator looking for training to structure change in a deeply divided campus, workplace, or community? Are you a leader looking for expertise to convene and skillfully facilitate a circle process that allows others to participate in conflicts productively?

The Sustained Dialogue process is a 5-stage peace process developed in the Camp David Peace Accords and published in texts such as A Public Peace Process: Sustained Dialogue to Transform Racial and Ethnic Conflicts. This circle process is designed to be organized and led by everyday people who want an alternative to intergroup divides. This series details how to effectively use and facilitate this process, which was designed by former diplomat Dr. Harold Saunders to be used by willing participants to build relationships and come to action in entrenched conflicts. This civic peace process centers on bringing together in systematic dialogue--not negotiation--individuals from conflicting groups to probe the dynamics of their conflictual relationship, to think together about obstacles to changing it, and to design a sequence of interactive steps that might remove those obstacles. It is led on 60 campuses, in at least 12 communities, and in workplaces by people who have received this training. Learn more about the network at sustaineddialogue.org

This series of weekly four-hour workshops is a full training in this methodology. We encourage you to register with a potential co-facilitator who shares different backgrounds than you, but who is similarly passionate about removing barriers to productive dialogue. Participants will learn to convene, apply, and facilitate this circle process. The series is also designed for facilitator pairs to join a network of Sustained Dialogue practitioners, a supportive community, and receive coaching from experienced staff from the Sustained Dialogue Institute, a nonprofit based in Washington, DC that builds capacity for groups around the world navigating divides around race, ethnicity, power, tribe, belief, religion, title and rank, water resources, land disputes in conflict zones, misperceptions, and more.

No experience is necessary, though we ask that each registrant consider their ability and interest in the following:

• Listening far more than speaking while co-leading a dialogue group
• Regulating one's own emotional responses around a conflict
• Listening deeply to those you disagree with (rather than using facilitation as a chance to teach others how to think),
• Working collaboratively with a peer co-moderator
• Practicing listening and questioning-asking skills
• Receiving feedback from participants
• Using a facilitation model that is different from many other facilitation/teaching processes.

Space is limited to 46 participants, so please sign up only if you can attend all sessions.

More About Logistics

• Can't join? We hold this several times per year. Our next round begins in the Spring 2025.
• We take attendance to support the process of getting each set of co-moderators trained fully.
• You'll receive session handouts by email before each session.
• All sessions are hosted via Zoom. We welcome you to join each session in whichever Zoom format (computer, phone only, etc.) works best for you.
• You also are welcome to join by phone if that works better for you. Dial-in information for joining by phone is included in the Zoom access information.
• The series is meant to be a low-pressure learning environment. We welcome you to join from whatever physical space works for you to learn in, and pets, colleagues, and kids are fully welcome to wander in and out while you participate. This is also a very snack-friendly space.

Do you tend to struggle to focus or participate in group settings?
For those who prefer active groups, you may be surprised others have their cameras off and do not interact with the full group. Group facilitators encourage both active and silent learning in this cohort, which may be strange for those who want a large group community experience. We encourage you to pay attention to the quieter and more subtle dynamics of the group, as those who tend to speak and be on camera are a fraction of the full learning group.

Some group participants often become friendly over several weeks, learning each others' names, and for some more private learners, this might feel unexpected and distracting. For example, you are likely to hear examples and sharing from others. In other cases, someone may speak up in a big group in surprising ways.

Because you won't simply be interacting with lecture material, we include this note, as viewing each group's unique dynamics may not be ideal for all learners and backgrounds. Please consider reaching out and requesting alternate methods to learn the Sustained Dialogue® process more privately.

What to expect from group interaction:
This workshop works when all participants are open to casually interacting with VERY diverse backgrounds and all levels of experience, but all interaction and breakout groups are optional. Being on camera is optional, as well, though some do turn their camera on.

Are you a student worried about interacting with others in other roles? Don't worry, this process is best learned while a student!

While the primary structure is not reliant on group interaction, there may be large and small group moments that involve practicing dialogue with others:

• giving input on group norms for this training experience (for example, not attacking others' backgrounds, or referring to people by their names)
• sharing about prompts like, "What's a piece of your background that matters to you?" or "What's a recent show, book, or experience that you enjoyed?"
• practicing listening deeply to others
• discussing learning content with fellow learners
• working collaboratively with others to develop solutions to community problems

I know that I can't make a session. Should I sign up?

• Please sign up only if you can make each session. Why?
  • Sessions are not recorded for data privacy. Missing a session requires a live synchronous makeup with a facilitator.
  • Most people will have something that comes up by surprise because this is an intensive engagement.
  • We hold public workshops each spring, summer, and fall, so please plan for the next training round instead of "making it work".
• Not able to join this time but want to be notified about later offerings?
  • Sign-up to our Newsletter: https://sustaineddialogue.org/subscription-center/

Organizing a larger group from your school, workplace, or institution?
We highly recommend sending each member of your group to this link and having them register directly, or by asking them to join the waitlist linked above. This series often sells out and organizing a group can be a slower process than this registration process allows. Please email [email protected] to register larger groups through one invoicing process.

Why should you learn how to facilitate the Sustained Dialogue® process?
Many recognize the need to bridge divides and to build relationships to tackle complex problems. Yet, addressing these problems can often feel overwhelming and takes time that we don't have, Sustained Dialogue® is a process that can be applied to solve community problems in a less overwhelming way. The Sustained Dialogue® process can help groups find shared interests and identify achievable group actions. Through dialogue, participants collectively develop effective solutions more quickly than individuals would on their own.

During this workshop with the Sustained Dialogue Institute, workshop participants will learn:

• skills for both being in dialogue with others and facilitating dialogue
• how to create conditions for dialogue
• how to apply these skills to addressing complex problems within their communities

​What will I be able to do after fully completing this workshop?
If you complete all sessions of the series, you will be trained to co-facilitate a dialogue group for your workplace, community, or campus using the Sustained Dialogue Institute materials provided by the Sustained Dialogue Institute.

The Sustained Dialogue Moderator Skill Series will :

• NOT train you in how to train others to facilitate dialogue or to replicate the training experience that you received from the Sustained Dialogue Institute through this course. This means that you may NOT use any of the activities, content, or materials from the Sustained Dialogue Institute workshop series to train other people in how to facilitate dialogue.
• You also may NOT distribute, reproduce, share, or upload any content from the Sustained Dialogue Institute (including Sustained Dialogue Institute Sustained Moderator Skill Series handouts) without first receiving explicit written permission from the Sustained Dialogue Institute staff to do so.

Register and learn more here: www.eventbrite.com/e/fridays-at-1pm-virtual-sustained-dialogue-training-december-2024-tickets-1048967037647?aff=oddtdtcreator