What is Community Building?

Community Building is an ideal. I value the utility and helpfulness that comes from gathering perspectives and have found there is no greater teacher than a stranger. Learning from not knowing and doing so in relationship supports not only you and I, but us and we. Community Building is what I strive for and acknowledge that it is always a moving target that requires continual adjustment, poise, pressure, understanding, confidence, courage as well as humility. Each Community Building experience seeks to collaboratively explore, identify, inform & share reliable and meaningful avenues to promote human and organizational attunement, performance and partnership.

What does Community Building look like?

Community building looks a lot of different ways. It can look like a standard classroom environment where there is a teacher and students, it can look like a team huddle where all members are wrapped around a common goal. Community Building may appear as a facilitation where a guide helps others gather and gain insight. It can look like two people sitting next to each other talking as well appear within the individual thinking, acting, becoming what is known as “outside the box”.

What’s makes Community Building different from other models of consultation?

Community Building reinforces the power of an individual working alongside other individuals collectively. The effects of this process are ever evolving however the consistent outcomes are individual choice and collective belief. In short and to the point, believing in the individual and what is not known inherently reinforces the collective.

Consultation, in its more rigid form, relies on a system of power (the consultant) enforcing collectivism based on a what is known. Consultation relies less on establishing belief and more on ensuring the one in power remains in power.

Upcoming Community Building Opportunities

Past community building experiences include the following organizations: Michigan Army National Guard, National Association of Social Workers, International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, Michigan State University’s School of Continuing Education, Michigan Technical University, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Saginaw Valley State University, American Red Cross, Navy and Marine Corps Fleet and Family Support Services, Davenport University, Michigan's 54B District Court-Veteran Treatment Court Program