Empathy and Collaborative Meaning-Making: An Overview of Citizens’ Councils

This event is a 2hr seminar conducted on 2 Sept and then repeated on 9 Sept.

It is hosted by the Canberra Alliance for Participatory Democracy and sponsored by Diapraxis and Global Learning.

In a time of increasing need for deliberative democracy and public participation, this is an opportunity to learn about an innovative method for working with small groups that honors the creative potential of conflict and complexity. Join us to learn about how Citizens’ Councils (Vorarlberg Bürgerrat) have spread in Austria and Germany since 2006.

Recently featured in the OECD’s report on “Innovative Citizen Participation and New Democratic Institutions”, information about this flexible and effective method is now becoming more available in the English-speaking world.

Who is the workshop for?

• Deliberative democracy organizers
• Deliberative democracy practitioners
• Professional facilitators
• Community activists

Come learn about work being done in other parts of the world, and discover how it might inform the work you are already doing. We look forward to sharing with you this exciting evolution in democracy!

The format of this mini-workshop will include:

• A presentation on Citizens’ Councils
• Whole-group conversation with Q&As
• A fishbowl format for a small taster of what happens inside a Citizens’ Council

The Dynamic Facilitation process is the “operating system” of the Citizens’ Councils. This relational approach to working with groups differs in some significant ways from other facilitation methods used in citizen deliberation. It also has organizational, community, and activist applications.

Rosa Zubizarreta is the principal at Diapraxis. Author of "From Conflict to Creative Collaboration: A User’s Guide to Dynamic Facilitation", she teaches this approach internationally. Her background is in organization development, multicultural education and social work. She is currently working on a PhD in Human and Organizational Systems.

Andy Paice is a facilitator and convener who works with local government and has been involved in the recent wave of Citizens Assemblies and participatory democracy in the UK. He is passionate about Dynamic Facilitation and has been working with Rosa and Martha developing online applications of it. www.andypaice.net

Martha Cuffy is a facilitator and leadership consultant. With a background in process work, relationships systems and trauma-informed practices she supports facilitators to dive deeper into their professional development. She has worked with Andy in u.lab processes, Citizen Assembly on climate emergency and participatory democracy with local government.

Mark Spain is a facilitator and designer of experiential learning for personal, business and system innovation and a senior consultant at Global Learning. He teaches leadership and facilitation approaches and is a founding member of the Canberra Alliance for Participatory Democracy.

The image for this seminar comes from the Pattern Language for Wise Democracy