Cultivating powerful participation

1. Round 1 Question: Tell a story about your cultural identity and what it means to you
   1. Use this resource as a guide: Cultural Introduction Activity
2. Round 2 Question: How does your cultural identity inform your understanding of food justice?
3. Round 3 Question: Thinking about the stories you heard, here are some facts about food injustice in MN. How does this inform your understanding of food justice and what areas do you want to dig deeper in?
   1. Use this resource as a guide: MN Food Injustice Facts

1. How do you see yourself using this method in your work or life?
2. What questions would you ask?
3. How would it help your work move forward?

1. First we reviewed the guidelines of Open Space Technology:
   1. Law of Two Feet: If you find yourself in a situation where you are not contributing or learning, move somewhere where you can.
   2. Note - you can do this in Zoom simply by leaving the assigned breakout room. Once you re-enter the main room, the hosts will re-assign you to the next topic of your choice.
   3. Four Principles:
      1. Whoever comes are the right people
      2. Whenever it starts is the right time
      3. Whatever happens is the only thing that could happen
      4. When it’s over, it’s over
2. Our Complex Question: How does the food system need to change in order to be responsive to the food disruptions resulting from COVID?
3. Market Place: Then we opened the “Market Place” using an interactive slide. Participants suggested topics of conversation they wanted to host related to the complex question.
4. Breakout Conversations: Then we used the breakout function of Zoom to get participants into the topics of conversation they wanted to partake in. Each topic had a different number. In order to get participants into the room they wanted, we had them rename themselves with the number room they wanted to be placed in (i.e. 1 - Jane Doe, 2 - John Doe).
   1. Typically Open Space Technology has multiple rounds, for the sake of time, we only held one round in the workshop. 
   2. Conversations can last anywhere from 15 minutes to multiple days. 
5. Then we came back together as a large group and “harvested” the insights from the conversation using this question: “Share one major takeaway from your group's conversation.”

1. How do you see yourself using this method in your work or life?
2. What questions would you ask?
3. How would it help your work move forward?

1. First we shared the purpose of using the peer consultation method:
   1. To connect people doing similar or complementary work
   2. To share work and ideas in a focused, feedback driven manner
   3. To give the gift of feedback in a constructive and affirming space
2. Participants were given 10 minutes to complete the 2nd page of the worksheet
3. Next, we reviewed the three key elements of the consultant role:
   1. Ask open-ended questions (what, which, where, how, tell me) vs close-ended questions (do you, are you, did you, could you, have you)
   2. Ask forward-focused questions (how can you get back on track) vs backward-focused questions (why did you do that)
   3. Reflect back what you are hearing, especially by paraphrasing and reflecting on the speaker's feelings
4. Breakout Conversations: Then we used the breakout function of Zoom to get participants into groups of three and four. Participants each had a few minutes to share their food justice project or idea, and to receive feedback and questions from the other group members. 
5. Then we came back together as a large group and “harvested” the insights from the conversation using this question: “What did it feel like to receive advice in this way?”

1. How do you see yourself using this method in your work or life?
2. What questions would you ask?
3. How would it help your work move forward?

1. Video: Allegories on race and racism | Camara Jones | TEDxEmory
2. Video: Life of Privilege Explained in a $100 Race
3. Blog: We Can’t Call Ourselves Allies | Anisha Phillips | Feminuity
4. Books: White fragility, My grandmother's hands, The Hate U Give 
5. Podcasts: Seeing White, 1619, Code Switch
6. Self Assessment: Implicit Bias Test from Harvard

Welcome

• Icebreaker: Using the chat function (located at the bottom of your window), please tell us what you have been doing for self care.

• Resource from Cultivating Powerful Participation: Opening activity / icebreaker ideas

Shared agreements

• Make space for everyone to share (including silence)

• Speak your truth, be authentic

• Speak from a personal perspective

• Lean into discomfort

• What’s said here, stays here; what’s learned here, leaves here

• Resource from Cultivating Powerful Participation: Sample agreements

Overview of Zoom

• Resource: Zoom one-pager

• NEW to Zoom? Use the Zoom Help Center and type in your question or privately chat Stephanie Heim for support.

Story 

• Summer’s Bounty—Ask Me For More - Pakou Hang 

Overview of Reflective Listening 

• When is it used?

• What are the benefits? 

• Resource from Cultivating Powerful Participation: Reflective Listening. 

  • Instructions

    1. Break into groups of 4 

    2. One person tells a story (Speaks for 6 minutes) 

    3. Three people listen and then reflect back (about 1 minute / each)

       • One person listens for facts
       • One person listens for feelings 
       • One person listens for values 
    4. Every 10 minutes, people switch roles. Each person will practice each of the four roles. 

• Share a story about a food experience that left an impression on you.
• Your story does not have to follow the cues of others. 
• Practice listening with your whole self. 
• When you are reflecting back on what you’ve heard - ask with a question. “It sounds like you really value - xyz - is that right?”

• How did it feel to be either the storyteller, or listener to facts, feelings or values?
• How do you see yourself using this method in your work or life?
• Resource from Cultivating Powerful Participation: Method reflection worksheet.

• Practice reflective listening in conversations this week. Notice how it feels to listen for facts, feelings and values. 
• Learn more about engaging participants online! Training for Change: Leading Groups Online.

1. What is it good for?
   1. To ventilate ‘hot topics’ or sharing ideas or information from a variety of perspectives
   2. To foster understanding, spark creativity and facilitate adoption of new practices among members of a larger community. 
   3. To support opportunities for multiple voices to be heard in medium to large discussions. 
2. General flow: 
   1. Select a topic. Ideally this a ‘hot topic’ or dilemma that is complex with multiple perspectives. In this fishbowl, we used this blog post There Is No Food Justice Without Racial Justice (May 31) by the National Farm to School Network (NFSN). 
   2. Five people join the inner circle using this interactive slide. Only people inside the fishbowl are allowed to talk. The following inner circle instructions & tips were shared:
      1. 5 people to begin
      2. Talk to each other, not to the outer circle. Imagine being in a car sharing stories and having a conversation. 
      3. Two open chairs in the inner circle will be available for someone to jump in.
   3. Outer circle stays quiet as focused observers and listeners, taking notes on the content and process of the inner circle’s discussion. The following outer circle instructions & tips were shared:
      1. Be a focused observer of the conversation
      2. Listen deeply for facts, feelings, and values
      3. Come up with questions for the people in the inner circle and put them in the chat box.
      4. Take notes on both the content and process of the inner circle’s conversation using these guiding questions:
         1. What are you seeing?
         2. What are you hearing?
         3. What are you feeling? 
         4. What are you learning?
   4. One person facilitates. This facilitator does not participate in the discussion, but poses questions and provides nudges along the way to prompt deeper discussion.

1. How did it feel to be inside or outside the fishbowl? 
2. What did you notice within yourself and others?
3. What learning will leave with you today? 
4. How do you see yourself using this method? 

1. Part 1: Identify a project that needs to be envisioned or re-envisioned. We asked participants to chose a project that was explicitly anti-racist and food justice-oriented. 
2. Part 2: Provide a brief overview of the project, including how it started, who is part of the project team, what is the goal, who is the intended audience, etc.
3. Part 3: Envision success using a variation of the following question, “What would it look, sound, and feel like if we were 100% successful in [enter project goal]?” For instance, the following question was used to envision success of one participant’s project: “What would it look, sound, and feel like if we were 100% successful in reaching a more diverse audience at the Arlington farmers market?”
   1. Allow participants to popcorn their answers. Capture the answers either on sticky paper when working in-person or using a google doc or other app like padlet or jamboard.
   2. After a set amount of time (5-10 minutes) or when participants exhaust their ideas, read the responses aloud to all participants.
   3. Facilitation Tip: Encourage participants to think about what it would look, sound, and feel like. Typically participants will default to providing answers that are objective from their senses, hence less creative!
4. Part 4: Discuss current and future reality using adaptations of the following questions:
   1. What “Strengths” can we use to reach success?
   2. What “Weaknesses” do we need to recognize in order to reach success?
   3. If we are successful, what “Challenges” may we experience?
   4. If we are successful, what “Benefits” may we experience?
      1. After a set amount of time (10-20 minutes) or when participants exhaust their ideas, read all the responses aloud or ask participants to take a moment to read the responses silently to themselves.