This spring and summer, I have been teaching Diversity Training for new police recruits at the Justice Institute of British Columbia’s Police Academy. For the course, I integrated Finding Home’s values-based approach to problem solving. The training enables the students to apply the practical skills and theoretical knowledge required for the cross-cultural problem solving, communication, and partnership building that is important in all aspects of police work. The goal is for new police recruits to understand different interpretations of the same event, learn tools to manage their own interpretations and reactions, and ultimately to increase their effectiveness in responding to challenging situations. My goal in providing this workshop is that new police recruits will first explore their triggers (interpretations and emotional reactions), before pulling a trigger.
Today the International Society for Performance Improvement hosted an event called “Conflict Resolution Cracker Barrel” where participants were given an opportunity to experience diverse Conflict Resolution approaches. I gave a taste of Finding Home’s cross-cultural and values-based approach. In my session, participants learned about how our interpretations influence our reactions and ultimately the decisions we make. We explored different interpretations of the same event and tools to clean up our own interpretations so that we can make more effective decisions.
Other practitioners included Gary Harper, who presented ”What’s your conflict style – It’s in the Cards;” Roy Johnson, facilitated his “Zingers – How to respond when you can’t believe how they responded;” Kim White, facilitated a session called “Coaching Through Conflict” and Raj Dhasi who led ”How Did This Conversation Go So Wrong?”
During Finding Home’s launch dialogue, Senator Roméo Dallaire explained we live in an era of globalization and technological development where we have the ability to communicate around the world, with the whole of humanity, in the space of hours; where global issues like the environment have stark consequences for all of humanity. We live in “an era of massive rapid revolutionary change that is hitting us at constant pressure”. Our times, he says, “call for consciousness of the future, for pro-activeness and long-term planning.” From Rwanda, to Oka, Darfur to Iraq, Senator Dallaire illustrated the multiple frictions that exist around the world today. Humanity, he explained, is now recognizing it is in conflict with the Earth and in conflict with itself. He urged us to see that we live in a complex era where there are no simple or easy answers.
In the spirit of great optimism Senator Dallaire shared a vision of humanity in 200 years. A humanity that is comfortable with it’s differences, that recognizes “a common humanity”. He explained “differences will not become instruments of frustration and friction but in fact become complementary…we need to recognize that the humanity that exists in all of us is just expressing itself in different ways and in so doing there might be a complementarity there versus a source of friction that leads to conflict.” He challenged us that the task at hand is within the next two hundred years to further develop and disseminate the tools to transform our conflicts, allowing us to find a common vision for unity – recognizing each other’s inherent search for serenity. He suggests one of these tools is the global human rights movement.
J.J. Verigen, Executive Director of the Union of the Spiritual Communities of Christ, weighed in about our technological advancements and our growing inability to manage the ethical and moral implications of “progress”. And asked “Do you think in your 200 hundred year prognosis, we as human beings will ever come to be whole? Will our capacity to care, ever be surpassed by our compulsion to kill?”
Listen to Senator Dallaire’s response.
Like many beginnings, Finding Home grew out of an idea about how the world could be rather than the way it was. In 2000, I worked on human rights in South America and when I returned to Canada she became curious about the nature of collective denial and how to shift human consciousness about our relationship to each other and to the environment. This inquiry led her to completing her Masters Degree in Dispute Resolution at the University of Victoria where I investigated approaches to reconciliation initiatives from around the world. This led me to develop a new framework and practical skills for fostering reconciliation.
Worldview Skills: Transforming Conflict From The Inside Out was published in 2005 and I began to give keynote addresses, workshops , public conversations, seminars, courses and teleconferences on Worldview Skills and Reconciliation. Committed to capacity building that reaches residents, community leaders and practitioners alike, the idea for a place-based initiative was born.
In 2006, I launched Finding Home™: How To Belong In A Changing World , a neighbourhood dialogue and capacity building initiative, and has since grown our already impressive record of neighbourhood success stories.
