Conversation Principles & Practices

• Start conversation by sharing LVN values
• Introductions include participant values
• Values also embedded in conversation guidelines

Gets past positions and to core beliefs 

Grounds all conversation in shared values & sets the tone for the conversation

• Questions draw from and are based in personal experience (not extrapolated from other media or abstract notions)
• Open ended questions to return to how/why the issue or concern matters to participant
• Understanding one another within the conversation in ways that we don’t get a chance to elsewhere
• Context for positions/opinions

Interrupts polarization by offering complexity, specificity/multiplicity of identities and affiliations

Participant experience shapes the conversation

• Differing perspectives and opinions are welcome & encouraged
• Facilitators hold space for conflict & support participants in navigating conflict with a focus on sharing personal experience over debate
• Facilitators are trained to lean into discomfort rather than avoiding discomfort or conflict

“No challenge, no change” - central role of a different kind of engagement is the growth that can be produced through staying with discomfort/uncertainty

Building the “muscle” for democratic practices/civic engagement

Engagement (rather than avoidance) is what ultimately surfaces new possibilities and the opportunity to create new stories

• Cross-pollination allows participants to connect with people from different neighborhoods throughout the community
• In the closing questions of the conversation, participants elevate their concerns or meaningful elements of their conversation to local representatives or media
• Participants connect with each other through making personal commitments at the end of the conversation

Local issues and concerns are amplified (getting to underheard stories) & our understanding of one another is improved

People experience their experience differently - surfacing the different meanings made of living in the same community offers deeper stories and understanding