Making Dialogue Effective, Panel Discussion 4- Skills in Dialogue: Cultivating Effective Listening and Empathy

Wed, 09 Feb 2011 18:45 in Discussion Forums

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Where: Dialogue Society, London
Time: 6:45pm
Panellists:

Justine Huxley, St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace
Lisa Cumming, Programme for a Peaceful City, University of Bradford
Dr Jill Adam, Executive Director, Level Partnerships; Previously Head of the School of Education and Professional Development at Leeds Metropolitan University;

Abstract

This discussion will bring together professionals of different backgrounds to explore the skills that are needed by participants and facilitators for dialogue to work. Discussion will consider how these skills can be acquired, encouraged and taught.

Questions to be considered:

What are the most important skills for intercultural dialogue?
How can people involved in intercultural dialogue (in a voluntary or a professional capacity) build on their skills?
Do young people in this country acquire the necessary skills for intercultural dialogue and understanding in the course of their general education?
What measures could increase general "dialogue literacy"?

Panellists:

Justine Huxley, St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace
Justine, who belongs to a Sufi tradition, has a PhD in psychology and her background is in research consultancy.
"I'm passionate about bringing diverse peoples together in new ways and fascinated by the power of narrative and true life storytelling to build bridges"
Lisa Cumming, Programme for a Peaceful City, University of Bradford
I work for Programme for a Peaceful City (PPC) which is a knowledge exchange network, building thinking and practice about public conversations, rooted in the Department of Peace Studies and the International Centre for Participation Studies at the University of Bradford. Established two months before the July 2001 Bradford riots we learnt much from many years of hosting conversations that aimed to facilitate safe but challenging spaces for discussing the difficult issues which might divide people. In recent years we have become interested in deepening our understanding of talking processes. As part of this journey, I have developed a field of practice in intergroup dialogue with co-facilitators Huw Illingworth and Tariq Bashir and together we facilitate conversations about the complexity of identity, place and values. We feel strongly that we still have much to learn about how to facilitate and continually challenge our own assumptions about the value and limitations of talking processes.
Dr Jill Adam, Executive Director, Level Partnerships
Jill has a wealth of experience in partnership work across education, the arts, sport, housing, health and diverse communities, both at home and abroad. She leads Level's work with schools, including Free Schools and Academies, as well as educational work in partnership with Cambridge Education and Schofield Sweeney Solicitors. Jill's partnership work with diverse populations includes inter-faith dialogue and community engagement, specifically with Muslim and Christian communities in Turkey and closer to home, with associated schools in Bradford, West Yorkshire and Tottenham, London.

Previously Jill was Head of the School of Education and Professional Development at Leeds Metropolitan University. She started her career as a secondary school teacher, initially specialising in Physical Education and Sports Science before diversifying into Special Educational Needs, with a particular focus on behaviour management.

Introduction to Panel Discussion Series

A series of panel discussions examining the question of how to make intercultural dialogue work. Those working with intercultural and interreligious dialogue at the community or professional level face a range of challenges regarding its effectiveness. We are asked, or ask ourselves, such questions as:

Does what we do make or contribute to a tangible difference to society in any way?
Does our work, whether directly or otherwise, reach beyond the sympathetic to those whose attitudes and behaviour are an actual threat to peace and social cohesion?
Are the relationships that our work initiates across cultural or religious boundaries of a meaningful and lasting kind?
Is our work part of something broader that is capable of effecting change on a grand scale?

This series is intended to occasion focused and constructive discussion of such questions among a range of people concerned with relationships between different cultural, religious or social groups, in their professional lives or at the community level.

Findings and conclusions will be published. It is hoped that the series will be replicated at three independent UK branches of the Dialogue Society, allowing us to draw on a wider range of perspectives in collating findings.

Aims and Objectives

To encourage interprofessional dialogue, interaction and cooperation between people working on intercultural/ interreligious dialogue, peace and social cohesion.
To foster dialogue between people engaged with dialogue at the personal or community level, and those concerned with the same questions in a professional capacity.
To explore and clarify the questions of what effectiveness in dialogue is, and whether and how it can be measured.
To find a range of creative and practical answers to the question of how dialogue can be made effective by

identifying and promoting current best practice and
identifying and promoting promising future possibilities.
To share these answers among all participants of the series and more widely.

The Topics:

1. "Effectiveness" in Intercultural and Interfaith Dialogue: Can it be defined? How do we measure it?
30/11/2010
Confirmed speakers:

Mehri Niknam, MA, MBE, Executive Director, the Joseph Interfaith Foundation.
Simon Keyes, Director of St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace.
Dr Andrew Smith, Scripture Union.

2. Effectiveness at the grassroots: seeking the personal and the genuine
07/12/2010
Confirmed speakers:

Imam Dr Abduljalil Sajid, Chairman, Muslim Council for Religious Harmony UK; Executive Member, World Congress of Faiths.
Samuel Klein, Co-Director, the Coexistence Trust
Sarah Perceval, Storyteller

3. Effectiveness in dialogue for conflict transformation
14/12/2010
Confirmed speakers:

Dr Diana Francis, Conflict Transformation Facilitator, Trainer and Consultant.
Dr Marwan Darweish, Senior Lecturer at Coventry, Expert in Peace Processes and Conflict Transformation.

4. Skills in dialogue: cultivating effective listening and empathy.
09/02/2011
Confirmed speakers:

Lisa Cumming, Programme for a Peaceful City, Bradford University Peace Studies Department
Justine Huxley, Interfaith Projects Coordinator, St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace
Jill Adam, Executive Director, Level Partnerships; previously Head of the School of Education and Professional Development at Leeds Metropolitan University.

5. Becoming a dialogue movement: what can dialogue learn from other movements?
02/03/2011
Confirmed speakers:

Danny Chivers, Performance Poet Involved in the Environmental Movement
Dr Nicola Montagna, Middlesex University

6. Preaching to the unconverted: how can dialogue reach the disengaged, the prejudiced and the hostile?
Confirmed speakers:

Stephen Shashoua, Director, Three Faiths Forum
Alison Seabrooke, Community Development Foundation
Prof Ian Linden, Director of Faiths Act, Tony Blair Faith Foundation / Professor of Religious Studies, SOAS
Canon David Porter, Canon Director for Reconciliation Ministry at Coventry Cathedral

Guests are warmly invited to attend as many of the sessions as possible to contribute to an ongoing process of focused reflection over the course of the series.