Abstract Summary
PURPOSE: The purpose of the workshop is to propose an innovative culturally sensitive, trauma informed transdisciplinary methodology Relational Action Forums for Transition (RAFTs) to research and enact community led eco social interventions for more resilient and sustainable cities. RAFTs offer an adaptive structure within which professionals/citizens can (I) learn foundational embodiment, relational and citizen science skills to (II) collectively reflect, research and let emerge actionable solutions in their communities. RAFTs are composed of two parts, participants: (i) take time to explore their nervous system experience, individually and collectively, develop a trusting relational space favouring intimacy, vulnerability and creativity, and (ii) are guided through a few simple prototyping steps of -Community science skills to co create an evaluation scheme assessing the RAFT session itself and the emergent action-oriented eco-social interventions, and -Action deliberation skills to think and feel collectively about local issues, existing evidence for solutions and realistic community led interventions to resolve them TECHNIQUES & PRACTICES: The workshop will include practices of: -Self Regulation: Listening to one’s nervous system experience with mindfulness, self compassion (Neff & Knox, 2016), somatic orientation (Porges & Furman, 2011) and positive reinforcement (Seligman, 2010) -Co Regulation: listening actively (Rogers, 1957), communicating with trauma sensitivity (Honsinger & Brown, 2019), taking and coordinating others’ perspective (Fuhs, 2016), attuning to others and the group as a whole -Citizen Science: co designing and co evaluating eco social interventions -Self Organization & Action Deliberation: group facilitation (Yalom & Leszcz, 2020), perspective taking , leadership & project management LEARNING OBJECTIVES: -Increased resiliency through trauma sensitive and compassionate nervous system regulation -Embodied cognitive empathy to perceive others’ experience and views with acceptance -Ability to lead a co creative citizen science process to research and evaluate community based interventions -Deliberation on and co creation of actionable local environmental and social interventions TEACHING STRATEGIES & RESSOURCES: We will mostly be using experiential processes for participants to reach the learning outcomes. We will refer to cutting edge research, use some powerpoint slides, a singing bowl and a ‘group deliberation toolkit’ (post its, flipchart, pens, etc). TARGET AUDIENCE: Change makers, non professionalized young adults, psychologists, citizen scientists, urbanists, social justice activists, environmentalists, decision makers, pro democracy activists, social workers. PRE-REQUISITE LEVEL OF EXPERIENCE: None. Previous personal and relational development and linking these to urban resilience is desirable. DURATION & MODALITY: 2x 90 minutes, in person or online (ideally, 2x2 hours). We can also do only 1x 90 minutes, though this means only proposing part (I), corresponding to learning outcomes 1+2. Number of participants: 12-15 FACILITATORS: Liubov Tupikina & Boaz Feldman
