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The First 2000 Days: The power of conversation!

Engagement - The Challenge

We are learning from the work to date of EC Map coalitions and the First 2000 Days network that moving the needle on early childhood development requires collective action within and among coalitions! Engaging others can be a challenging process!

Paul Born, president of the Tamarack Institute and author of Community Conversations, maintains that community conversations are increasingly at the heart of engagement across sectors and vital to bringing about relevant and sustainable community change. He sees the potential of conversations to create a space of trust where communities can learn together and form a common vision and build on the positive energy for taking action.

Conversation - The opportunity

Providing a space for dialogue and relationship building within and between coalitions can be key tocapitalizing on our collective capacity. Bringing citizens, coalitions and local groups and institutions together to dream about how we can work to positively impact early childhood development is so much more than “just conversation”! These community conversations can inform us, inspire us and spur us into action in pursuit of our our shared vision; that all children, supported by family and community, reach their optimal development.

Great things can happen when people that care about children come together in dialogue. Community conversations are an opportunity to:

  • Identify shared interests
  • Highlight possible solutions
  • Generate energy for taking collective action

As people of action it can feel most expedient toroll up our sleeves and get to work. This ‘can do’ energy is valuable and must be harnessed! However, taking the time within the coalition building process to engage the greater community helps to:

  • engage others in the coalition
  • highlight local assets
  • consider the issues from multiple perspectives
  • identify locally relevant potential action steps

Harnessing collective wisdom through conversations can take place within a range of formats. Whether 1:1 conversations, informal small groups or larger scale,café style events, these key principles for meaningful dialogue apply: people have the capacity to work together, and that thinking together leads to collective action. The greater the sharing of diverse experiences, stories, knowledge and perspectives, the greater the number of possibilities can emerge.

The World Café

World Café is a process to bring people together around questions that matter. When used in combination, these World Café design principles guide conversation that builds collective knowledge that can lead to action:

  1. Set the context – clarify purpose and parameters of conversation
  2. Create hospitable space – welcoming, nurturing safe environment
  3. Explore questions that matter – powerful questions that attract collaboration
  4. Encourage everyone’s contribution – inviting full participation
  5. Cross-pollinate and connect diverse perspectives – build on connections and perspectives that emerge
  6. Listen together for patterns, insights and deeper questions – nurture patterns of convergence without losing individual contributions.
  7. Harvest and share collective discoveries –

Brown, J., Isaacs, D. (2005) The World Café, Shaping our futures through conversations

that matter. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. San Fransisco. CA., p. 40

The collective insight evolves from the process when:

  • Unique contributions are honored
  • Ideas are connected
  • Listening in the middle takes place
  • Deeper patterns and questions are noticed

Brown, J., Isaacs, D. (2005) The World Café, Shaping our futures through conversations

that matter. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. San Fransisco. CA., p. 167

What does a World Café look like?

There are multiple variations on the format of the World Café; this is a process that lends itself to creativity and adaptation to the specific goals and context of the hosting group. One of the more common set-ups is for multiple small group tables addressing a series of questions for a limited time with a recorder of ideas, followed by a mixing and changing of groups who build onto the previous group’s conversation. Common themes, or deeper questions begin to emerge and are shared in order to stimulate action and guide change efforts. Having participants follow these tips for World Cafe etiquette helps to focus the conversation on what matters:

  • Contribute (thoughts and experience)
  • Listen (to really understand)
  • Connect (ideas)
  • Listen together (highlight patterns and deeper questions ) Brown, J. (2005), p. 167.

For various examples and case studies of World Café formats, refer to Brown, J., Isaacs, D. (2005). The World Café, Shaping our futures through conversations that matter. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. San Fransisco. CA.,

Community Conversations – Appreciative Inquiry

Adopting a strength-based, appreciative orientation to any community conversations sets the tone for a process that focuses on possibilities rather than problems, a citizen versus a client approach, and one where relationships are at the centre of the community efforts. These elements of successful community building are integral to an asset-based community development approach (McKnight and Kretzmann, 2003).

EC Map coalitions have a unique opportunity to provide the space for parents and community members to discuss positively-oriented questions such as:

  • What are your hopes and dreams for your children? What are the issues and therefore the opportunities for impacting ECD?
  • How have you been successful in supporting healthy early childhood development (ECD) at home or in your work?
  • What are the possibilities for supporting positive ECD that would make a big difference in this community?

This dialogue can serve to highlight assets, opportunities, validate the experiences and commitment of community and professionals to supporting healthy development. In doing so, the potential for taking collective action is highlighted, perhaps building ownership within the coalition and further momentum. Conversation can be a key element as research and experience point to the importance of building relationships within and among systems of support as being at the heart of healthy children and communities. (ie. Search Institute, social capital theory, Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory).

This approach to community facilitation begins with the underlying perspective that the capacity and many of the solutions exist and can be found within the community.

Glass half-full

(people have capacities and gifts)

vs.

Glass half-empty

(people have deficiencies and needs)


Community Conversations: The Facilitator Role

Community conversations can also be used to explore topics together that are specific to various aspects of early years development., i.e. brain development, early literacy, emotional development. A guided conversation can offer parents, caregivers or professionals an opportunity to come together around a shared interest – their child. Using this approach, community leaders and educators can work to:

  • Create a space where people are comfortable to share their own experiences, local knowledge and resources.
  • Highlight and build on previous successes.
  • Weave connections to help create networks and relationships among coalition members to increase the social capital that is known to positively impact learning outcomes.
  • Validate parent’s role whenever possible as their child’s first teacher and in doing so support them to be proactive in this important role both in the home and in the community.

Tips for a Great Conversation with Parents and Caregivers

  • Make the environment comfortable; offer refreshments
  • Create an open and safe environment where all participants feel comfortable to speak with heart and mind.
  • Begin every conversation with a question around caring:

Why is this important? Why does it matter?

  • Encourage all participants to be heard and understood.
  • Encourage sharing of stories, knowledge, experience and skills.
  • Slow down and allow time for reflection; listen for deeper insights and questions.
  • Draw out and provide encouragement for the things that are working and the knowledge and experience the community brings.

How can we build on this?

What can we do to go from good to better?

How might we strengthen our ability to make a difference?

  • Flexibility – honoring the flow of the conversation and adapt to what is important to each person.
  • Follow up whenever possible; linking, connecting and referring.
  • Relate the conversation to their children within different ages and stages whenever appropriate.

i.e. How does what we spoke about apply to your older children?

For more information on guided Conversation Café’s for the early years see: Café has been working to develop conversation guides for the early years in collaboration with Ready 4 Learning and the Deep South Coalition.

The next step – following up

A World Café or community conversation can generate a great deal of food for thought and energy for making change. Weaving the highlighted insights, ideas and assets together into action is the next step in maximizing the collective potential.

This can be made easier by:

  1. Tracking and monitoring highlighted assets, resources and existing connections
  • Stories
  • Individuals capacities, talents, gifts (gifts of the hands, head and heart)
  • Links with groups, associations and social networks
  • Links or experience with local institutions
  • (support, resources, and expertise)
  • Physical assets and resources
  • Financial assets
  • Cultural knowledge and assets
  1. Looking for commonly held views and themes that spark potential for action.
  2. Compiling and circulating information gathered in a format that is useable and accessible.
  3. Building on any opportunities to weave connections and support relationship building.
  4. Noting questions and ideas that require further thought or exploration and determine how that will happen.
  5. Having participants identify an action or step to take as a result of the conversations.

References and further reading:

Born, P. (2012), Community conversations, second edition, BPS Books, Toronto and New York, in association with Tamarack – an Institute for Community Engagement.

Available at:

Bronfennbrenner, U. (1994), Ecological models of human development

Brown, J., Isaacs, D. (2005) The World Café, Shaping our futures through conversations that matter. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. San Fransisco. CA.

D. Whitney, A. Trosten- Bloom, D. Cooperider (forward) (2003). The power of appreciative inquiry, A practical guide to positive change, (excerpt: Chapter 12: Why appreciative inquiry works). Available at:

D. Whitney, A. Trosten- Bloom, D. Cooperider, A. Trosten-Bloom, Brian Kaplan, (2002), Encyclopedia of Positive Questions, Using appreciatie inquiry to bring out the best in your organization, Lakeshore CommunicationsJ. Kretzmann,

J. McKnight (1993).Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community's Assets, available at:

Putman, R. (2000) Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000). Available at:

Sarkissian, W. (2009), Kitchen Table Sustainability, Practical Recipes for Community Engagement with Sustainability. Earthscan Publishing, VA.

Prepared for the:

by the and the Calgary Deep South Coalition.