POSITIVE COMMUNITY CHANGE

Skills for inspiring change and development in communities 16th - 21st of January 2012, Gouda, The Netherlands For whom?
This workshop is open those who want to use appreciative leadership approaches and skills in community work. People receding in the following countries can get all their cost covered: European Union countries, Iceland, Turkey, Norway, Croatia, Liechtenstein and Switzerland. The workshop is financially supported by the Grundtvig programme, which is a part of the lifelong learning programme of the EU. Travel to the workshop will be reimbursed and board and lodging will be provided by the organisers. Only an administration fee of 100 Euros will be charged.

Why a workshop on positive community change?

Today's leaders are to an increasing extent asked to be visionary and to act within rapidly changing environments. They are asked to inspire, motivate and empower others to work for their visions and to engage in learning and change. Appreciative leadership works with everyones good reasons for belonging to the organisation or community. It is based on assumptions taken from system and social constructionist theories. First of all leadership is a relationship and we cannot change others, but only our selves and through this invite others to change as well. Secondly, there are many perceptions of reality depending on your perspective on it. Appreciating the logic of each persons understanding and focusing on their resources increases the chances that they want to follow the leadership and thus change. Thirdly, words create worlds, and what we focus on becomes reality. If we focus on what works well, we get energy and motivation to deal with difficulties along the way. Appreciative leadership is increasingly being applied to community, programme and project development because there lays a stronger potential for growth and development in our strengths and resources than in our shortcomings and mistakes. Furthermore appreciative leadership involves participatory processes that value diversity and stimulate individual ownership and commitment. Problems are not denied and avoided, but the strength-based focus opens up for new ways of action and dealing with them.

The course will give you

Insight into the theoretical foundations of appreciative leadership

An understanding of how to involve community members in participatory change processes in such a way that ownership and commitment are created. Methods to structure and plan open-ended processes and Confidence to deal with such so-called open-end processes, A possibility to work on a tailor-made plan that fits the actual change ideas you have Practical leadership skills to follow up upon your community change ideas e.g. coaching, development talks, difficult talks around conflicts etc.) An opportunity to receive coaching on your exact challenges in relation to implementing your ideas at home during and after the course.

Methodology
The course will consist of a mix of short theoretical inputs, concrete exercises, and group discussions. It is believed that the best way to learn appreciative leadership is through reflecting upon and applying it to real-life cases from your everyday work. You will therefore be practicing the different tools on each other and in this way at the same time receive new insights on your current dilemmas. The course will be based on theoretical developments within appreciative inquiry applied to leadership and more generally in social constructionist and systemic approaches. Appreciation is not only understood as appreciating the exceptional, but also the good intentions and reasons of any person. In spite of the theoretical basis, the training will be highly practical.

Programme
Monday Tuesday Arrival in the evening: Welcoming drink Introduction: presentations, learning goals and learning contract What is appreciative leadership and community change? (relational focus, domains of interaction, positions of a leader) Experiencing the potential of the appreciative approach Theory of appreciative inquiry and leadership and its various phases, for project and strategy development Looking at stakeholders Identifying (phase 1); the wish behind the complaint(s) Inquiry (phase 2); finding the elements of success Continuing the phases Imagine (phase 3); exploring the vision of communities Innovate (phase 4); linking strengths with future ambitions Implement (phase 5); the human factor in planning Appreciative leadership skills (development talks & coaching) Appreciative leadership management) skills (difficult talks & conflict

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday Saturday

Looking back at your personal learning goals Evaluation 2

PRACTICAL INFORMATION
Dates and time
The workshop will start with an informal welcome on Monday the 16th of January 2012 and end at 15.00 on Saturday the 21st of. If accepted you will be asked to arrive Monday the 16th before 19.00 at Amsterdam airport and book your flights back after 16.30 on the 21st.

Workshop facilitators
MSc. in Psychology, Lene O. Mogensen, Denmark Senior consultant, Yvor Broer, Netherlands

Language
The workshop will be held in English. We therefore expect a good English command from those applying. We might contact applicants to check this, as to guarantee the quality of this workshop.

Place
The workshop will be held in the city of Gouda (www.gouda.nl), located in between of Utrecht on one side and Rotterdam and The Hague on the other. The workshop will take place most days in the old city hall, in the middle of the old town centre.

Price
This workshop is generously supported by the Grundtvig programme of the EU, a programme aimed at the development adult education in Europe (LLP). For that reason we can offer you this workshop almost for free and only charge 100 Euros administration fee. Travel, board and lodging will thus be covered by the organisers.

Application
If you would like to participate in this workshop, you will have to download the application form from our homepage. Please visit this link. We accept qualified applications until the deadline of the 14th of November 2011, midnight. The same week we will inform about acceptations, rejections and waiting list placements. There will be a maximum of 24 places for this workshop.

Further information
Please contact In Dialogue by email.

ABOUT IN DIALOGUE
In Dialogue is a consultancy corporation that works with personal and professional development of individuals, leaders, consultants, and teams, with organisational management and development as well as community development. In Dialogue was founded in 2004 and got its recent name early 2007. In Dialogue is specialised in human interaction and communication. Our work is based on principles of system thinking and social constructivist theories. We believe that humans and organisations know their own reality the best and therefore hold the answers to their challenges themselves. Our role is to facilitate finding new perspectives on the reality that open up new possibilities. The consultants working for In Dialogue have experience working with governmental and non-governmental organisations within diverse areas such as coaching individuals and teams, offering courses on among other things conflict management and mediation, solution-focused coaching, project leadership, as well as offering organisational development projects focusing on creating learning organisations. Read more about In Dialogue