Transformational Intergroup Dialogue Facilitation

Summer 2018



REGISTRATION LINK

Transformational Intergroup Dialogue Facilitation is  a three-part series designed to help practitioners create effective spaces for learning and authentic engagement across differences based on race, gender, socioeconomic status, religion, ability and sexual orientation.  Transformational Intergroup Dialogue is a social justice education approach which promotes intergroup cooperation and understanding through dialogue. Trainings have been offered in various settings across the United States over the past 3 years to support educators, leaders, activists, and entrepreneurs interested in improving intergroup relations within their classrooms, organizations, and communities. 

This multi-level training program integrates academic and experiential learning and intergroup dialogue practice. Participants explore personal and interpersonal capacities for diversity and intergroup facilitation, including emotional intelligence, relationship building and multicultural awareness. While the three workshops will primarily focus on improving the capacity for intergroup engagement, they will include several intergroup dialogues to help participants understand the utility of dialogue as a process for individual and group development around social identity and social justice.  


DATES AND TIMES
Transformational Intergroup Dialogue Facilitation is a three-part training offered over three separate, sequential workshops. Each workshop is offered over two consecutive days and will take place between  9:30am and 4:30pm. Workshops are offered year-round. Here are the dates for upcoming workshops: 
  • Part One: Introduction to Transformational Intergroup Dialogue
    • August 2-3
  • Part Two: Transformational Intergroup Dialogue Facilitation: Overcoming the Obstacles to Intergroup Engagement
    • August 6-7
  • Part Three: Moving from Social Violence to Constructive Conflict
    • August 8-9
You can register for just one, two or all three workshops. They must be taken in sequence.
REGISTRATION LINK

 TRAINING LOCATION:
The workshops will be held at Temple University Center City Campus, 1515 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102. The exact meeting room will be distributed to registered participants.

COST AND REGISTRATION:
Each participant must register online and pay online through PayPal below. The registration fee includes all training materials on both days, excluding meals. We will not be providing hotel accommodations or transportation. Please go to the following website for hotel and travel information: Transportation Link. For information about Philadelphia area hotels, please link to the Philadelphia Visitor's Guide here. 
In order to participate in the workshop, advance registration is required. There are a limited number of spots available for these workshops so register as soon as possible.The registration deadlines are listed with each workshop above. We have a sliding registration fee to accommodate varying budgets. 

TRAINING DESCRIPTION:
In Part 1: Introduction to Transformational Intergroup Dialogue, the workshop will focus on helping participants understand the challenges of intergroup interactions in the areas of facilitating, teaching, leading, and managing diverse groups around diversity issues. The workshop will encourage participants to identify the individual, emotional and socio-cultural factors affecting their ability to relate to others in their professional roles. The goal of the workshop is for participants to explore strategies for gaining the trust and respect of individuals who are culturally different from themselves and develop an awareness of their own obstacles to intergroup interaction, engagement, and leadership.

 Participants will have the opportunity to share their intergroup communication obstacles and collectively reflect on the institutional, social and individual barriers that hinder intergroup cooperation. During the workshop, the facilitators will engage participants in a number of experiential learning exercises to engender trust among participants and to create a learning environment that supports the expression of constructive conflicts.

 Part 1: Key Dimensions of the Introductory Workshop: The Practice of Dialogue
  • Introduction to Transformational Intergroup Dialogue – Theory, Practice, and Facilitation
  • Building Trust for Dialogue: Understanding the Facilitation Posture 
  • Narrative Knowledge: Integrating Participant Hopes and Fears into the Dialogue Process
  • Conceptual Framing and Application: Dialoguing for Transformation 
Goals of the first workshop:
  • Experience how transformational intergroup dialogue improves understanding and relationships between groups
  • Develop an awareness of one's own obstacles to facilitating, teaching, leading and managing diverse groups
  • Recognize facilitation assets and liabilities
  • Identify areas to change, improve or transform as a facilitator, leader, manager or group member when working with diverse groups
Part 2: Transformational Intergroup Dialogue Facilitation: Overcoming the Obstacles to Intergroup Engagement

 This second workshop is designed to provide practitioners with the tools to create productive spaces for learning and relationship building across social identities. This will be done through exercises and activities that engage participants in further identifying their obstacles and fears to intergroup engagement, particularly when facilitating, teaching, leading and managing diverse groups.

 The workshop will focus on helping participants develop an awareness of their own positionality and attitudes regarding intergroup engagement, and to develop the trust and shared motivations among diverse group members. Included in this process is an awareness of (a) any biases one may hold and how one may overcome or manage them; (b) the roles one enacts in intergroup contexts; and (c) the ways one participates in collaborative situations. Participants will then be introduced to and practice tools for designing and setting up their learning environments in a way that manages these contexts. 


These tools will aid in transforming social violence into constructive conflict, a key aspect of Transformational Intergroup Dialogue. In this context, social violence is defined as the denial of the humanity of the other based on social identity. It operates as a pathological accommodation to fears that arise from a confluence of societal, institutional, and personal factors, particularly influencing social separation related to race, gender, and sexual orientation. This kind of violence prevents people from living, working, and problem-solving together by supporting fear-based perspectives that maintain social separation and social control.

 Part 2: Key Dimensions of the Workshop: Healing the Social Wounds through Dialogue
  • Creating the Optimal Environment for Intergroup and Intragroup Communication through Dialogue 
  • Transformational Dialogues as a Process of Social Identity Exploration 
  • Moving from Social Violence to Constructive Conflict: Minimizing Fears for Social Healing
Goals of the second workshop:
  • Learning tools to manage the fears, mistrust and social violence in intergroup settings
  • Understanding, developing, and expressing individual motivations for intergroup engagement and intergroup facilitation
  • Minimizing one's fears during intergroup interactions as a participant or in a position of leadership 
Part 3: Transformational Intergroup Dialogue Facilitation: Moving From Social Violence to Constructive Conflict

 This third workshop is designed to help practitioners experience facilitating and receiving feedback using the Transformational Intergroup Dialogue approach. This workshop will allow participants to practice facilitating intergroup dialogues in order to feel ready to directly apply this approach in their work. Experimentation with the intergroup dialogue process, including the emotional life of a group, exploration of fears in intergroup relations, and developing trust in a group will be the focus.

 The workshop will deepen participants’ understanding of how to work with diverse groups in professional settings. Participants will review their personal and professional masks, and the ways their fears influence attitudes and behaviors related to social group identity. There will be a significant focus on understanding the socio-psychological bases of social identity and intergroup prejudice and violence; and practicing the “leader as a tool”.

 In Transformational Intergroup Dialogue, the facilitator is a key component of the dialogue process. The facilitator is the primary tool supporting individual and collective information sharing by creating a framework and opportunities for participants to authentically engage in the dialogue process. This workshop is focused on helping facilitators gain the skills to facilitate intergroup dialogues in a manner that engenders the confidence of participants for authentic engagement.

 Part 3: Key Dimensions of the Workshop: Enhancing Individual Capacity to Facilitate Self-Awareness and Social Reflection
  • Assessing Individual Capacity for Intergroup Dialogue Facilitation: Exploring the Emotional and Social Self
  • Understanding the Wounded Healer Within: Facilitator Obstacles to Participant Transformation 
  • Utilizing Dialogue for Intergroup Understanding and Collaboration
  • Establishing a Framework for On-Going Individual and Group Development 
  • Facilitator Self-Assessment 
Goals of the third workshop:
  • Engaging the dialogue process through facilitating mini-dialogues
  • Receiving feedback on facilitation skills
  • Assessing challenges and opportunities for facilitation growth
  • Understanding the role of the facilitator in transitioning dialogue participants from Social Violence to Constructive Conflict
REGISTRATION LINK

 PROGRAM FOUNDATION:
Transformational Intergroup Dialogue draws from two well-known and successful models for promoting democratic dialogue, action and civic engagement in the context of diversity: (a) the Michigan Intergroup Relations Model, a process used by the University of Michigan and universities throughout the United States to promote intergroup dialogue and engagement in higher education and community settings; and (b)Transformational Social Therapy (TST), a process used internationally to promote knowledge sharing and collaborative action involving diverse parties in municipalities, civil society, educational settings, and other public arenas. Both models are informed by the theory and practice of multicultural citizenship and theory and research on learning and equitable social change in the context of diversity. TST’s grounding in psychology and critical social theory complements the Michigan Model by contributing a more robust understanding of the ways human needs and social structures interact and influence intergroup behavior.


FACILITATORS: Tchet Dereic Dorman, Hillary Blecker, Pamela Barnett and Kimberly Chestnut have facilitated hundreds of dialogues, taught scores of classes, and led hundreds of workshops over the past 20 years collectively. 
Race Dialogue 1/18/16 @ Girard College.
Some of the trainings they have facilitated include,  Intergroup Dialogue Facilitator Training at Harrisburg Area Community College, Anne Arundel Community College; Bloomsburg University, Saint Joseph’s University, Juniata College, Western Carolina University, and the University of Wisconsin at Platteville; Empowering Educators to Engage Diversity: Promoting Academic Excellence for All Students at Friends’ Central School; and Real Talk: Engaging Gender and Race through Transformational Intergroup Dialogue at the 17th Annual Conference of the Pennsylvania Chapter of NAME at Keystone College. 
Tchet and Hillary offered Introduction to Transformational Intergroup Dialogue Facilitation on numerous occasions at Temple since July  of 2014. They have also collaborated to offer a race and class dialogue at the Tree House Bookstore and for the Philly Fellows. Tchet and Hillary co-facilitated a two part Black-Jewish Dialogue and provided student leadership training at the Pennsylvania College of Technology called Real Talk: Engaging Diversity through Dialogue.

Pamela and Tchet  partnered to offer a monthly workshop series for faculty teaching race courses called Can We Talk?: Teaching About Race and Diversity (http://realtalkdialogues.blogspot.com/p/can-we-talk.html) for four years at Temple. They have also facilitated Can We Talk? Teaching About Race and Diversity at Albright College and Westmoreland Community College; Leading and Teaching without Fear: Embracing Diversity through Constructive Conflict at the 22nd Annual Conference of the National Association for Multicultural Education; and Walking Our Talk: Professional Development for Facilitating Dialogue on Race and Diversity at the Network for Academic Renewal Conference of the Association of American Colleges and Universities.
Kimberly and Tchet have co-facilitated the Real Talk Gender Dialogue Series, Can We Talk? Teaching About Race and Diversity at Cabrini College and Introduction Transformational Intergroup Dialogue for the University of Wisconsin-Platteville; and Real Talk: Engaging Gender and Race through Transformational Intergroup Dialogue at the 17th​Annual Conference of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the National Association for Multicultural Education.

Additional Biographical Information
Tchet Dereic Dorman is the Owner of Pyramid Consulting Services, a non-profit company providing diversity education, training, evaluation, and assessment services to educational institutions, private companies and community-based organizations. He presently serves as the Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Germantown Friends School. He is the former Director of the Office of Diversity and Social Justice at Millersville University and the  former Director of the Center for Social Justice and Multicultural Education in the Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, Advocacy and Leadership at Temple University. He is the founder of Temple's Transformational Intergroup Dialogue program and managed the Graduate Certificate in Diversity Leadership. Additionally, he has also taught the following relevant courses: Emotions, Diversity, and Democratic Leadership; African American History; African Literature; Introduction to African American Studies; Gender Studies; Class, Gender and Race in the Global Village; Social Conflict; Introduction to Sociology;  Cultural Anthropology and Multiculturalism and the American Identity.  The National Association for Multicultural Education named him the Educator of the Year in 2007. Tchet received a Master’s and Doctoral degrees in African American Studies/Africology from Temple University.  
Hillary Blecker has over a decade of experience designing and facilitating participatory trainings on workplace and community issues from developing advocacy skills to creating safer workplaces. She has worked with unions, day labor worker centers, and health clinics. Hillary co-founded the Philadelphia Trainers’ Collaborative, which brought educators, organizers, and trainers together to share techniques and improve their ability to use education for transformation. Hillary is a founding partner of The Blue Door Group. TBDG provides high quality, customized training, facilitation and consulting services to various educational and civic organizations throughout the Mid-Atlantic region. Hillary earned a bachelor’s degree in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University, a master’s degree in Public Health from the University of Washington, and a graduate certificate in diversity leadership from Temple University. 
Dr. Pamela Barnett is the former Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Trinity Washington University. She is the former Associate Vice Provost and Director of Temple University’s Teaching and Learning Center. Prior to her work in instructional development, she was Associate Professor of English & African American Studies at the University of South Carolina. Her book Dangerous Desire: Literature of Sexual Freedom and Sexual Violence Since the Sixties (Routledge, 2004) examines literature written in response to the liberation movements of the 1960’s. Previously, Pamela worked as the associate director of the McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning at Princeton University. Prior to assuming this position, she was a tenured associate professor of English and African-American studies at the University of South Carolina. She earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Barnard College and a doctoral degree in English from Emory University.
Dr. Kimberly Chestnut is the Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs at West Chester University of Pennsylvania, providing direct student assistance on behalf of the Division of Student Affairs and overseeing Student Health Services, Counseling and Psychological Services, Wellness Promotion, and Center for Women and Gender Equity. She is the former Director of the Wellness Resource Center at Temple University where she worked with departmental staff, colleagues, and students to guide the prevention and health education efforts throughout the University. Kimberly earned her doctorate in Human Sexuality in 2009 from Widener University, where she also completed a Master’s degree in Education. Prior to studying in education she earned a Master’s degree in Psychology from George Washington University in Industrial/Organizational Psychology. In summer 2011, she completed the Graduate Certificate in Diversity Leadership offered through Temple’s College of Education and IDEAL.

PROGRAM SPONSORSHIP: Transformational Intergroup Dialogue Facilitation is sponsored by Pyramid Consulting Services in partnership with The Blue Door Group. 
 






CONTACT INFORMATION: Tchet Dereic Dorman, Pyramidconsultingservices@gmail.com, 267-549-9639
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