Actions
groundwork
3

Listen & Heal

Many communities have endured significant trauma and harm from the cumulative impacts of unjust and racist land use polices and development practices.

Activities

Develop a strategy to promote positive community dialogue and healing practices

Work with local health practitioners to identify techniques to address stress and trauma in community meetings, which can include mediation, body work, participatory art, and music and creation of sensory spaces for people to retreat, reflect, and rest.

Identify and make available an inclusive and collaborative space within the neighborhood for group members to share openly and build (or rebuild) trust with each other. Refer to trauma informed design principles to ensure the space is welcoming and calming.

Collect oral histories from community members

Using the Listen and Heal Template, survey and document the firsthand experiences of community members about living in the neighborhood, changes they have experienced, and the impact of changes over the years.

Key questions to consider include:

  • What are your most important memories of living in the neighborhood?
  • What changes have you seen in the neighborhood over time?
  • What do you like and dislike about the neighborhood?
  • Has living in the neighborhood enhanced or hurt your quality of life and personal health?
Create and host story circles to spark community dialogue and relationship building

Using the Listen and Heal Template, gather stories, with the goal of building a deeper understanding of community members’ lived experience within the neighborhood.

Key questions can include:

  • Have you been impacted by changes in the neighborhood over time? If so, can you describe?
  • What disparities (i.e., health outcomes, educational attainment, access to transportation, housing affordability) do you think exist in the community?
  • Is there a history of conflict within the community? If so, describe.
  • Can you point to projects or policies that have increased racial inequities within the neighborhood?
  • Can you point to projects or policies that have increased environmental pollution (including the impacts from climate change) within the neighborhood?
  • Are you or anyone close to you suffering from any form of trauma? If

so, are you willing to share details about what you are experiencing
and what you are doing to mitigate or overcome the trauma?
• Do you have recommendations for promoting healing within the
community?

Engagement

  • Work with an inter-cultural mediator with experience collaborating with communities to identify principles and techniques to navigate distrust and disruptive behavior among community members and stakeholders to ensure that all voices are heard and respected.
  • When designed well, story circles are powerful events for deep listening and building empathy. See below for tools to help design effective circles.
  • While we have offered up sample questions, it is important to design questions that match the local context to reflect the most pressing issues and history of the neighborhood. Pay attention to inherent or explicit bias in the development of questions.

Certification Templates

Certifciation Templates are only available for active APs and Certification candidates.

Resources

Enterprise Community Partners
National Council for Behavioral Health
Preservation of Affordable Housing
US Department of Arts & Culture
Mediators Beyond Borders International
The Circle Way

Other Actions in This Phase

1

Convene Working Group

The process of launching a Just Community starts with bringing together local leaders who share a common vision and are committed to collaboration.
2

Preliminary Scoping

To assess a community’s interest in becoming a Just Community, preliminary assessment is necessary. This action provides guidance in identifying drivers for change, conducting a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis, and defining the geographic boundary of work.
4

Map Community Assets

Community asset mapping is a process of identifying a neighborhood’s most significant strengths, which can include physical, economic, cultural, and environmental resources, in addition to local traditions, history, and events that shape the neighborhood’s identity.
5

Summarize

To understand the potential pace of growth (or lack of) in a neighborhood, it is important to understand the underlying drivers of change from land use plans to proposed projects that could spark gentrification.
2
Previous: Scoping
4
Next: Map Community Assets