|
 |
 |
Teams
from two of the Discovery Circles present the
results of their work to the entire assembled
Wellbriety Movement Conference on Healing From
Meth held in Denver Colorado in April, 2006.
Each team summarized answers to four questions
about solutions to the methamphetamine problem
in Native American communities. They talked through
what their mind map means in upbeat and sometimes
humorous ways. This presentation is the outcome
of the Discovery Circles at the conference. But
the information as well as the skill in carrying
out the mind mapping process was taken back to
each person’s home community to help solve
problems there. To learn how this works, please
look inside this issue of Wellbriety! Magazine.
|
There are a lot of important solutions
to the problem of methamphetamine in Native American
communities. Some of these include alert and committed
law enforcement, elimination of meth houses, removal
of raw materials for making meth, such as the cold medication
pseudoephedrine, more treatment centers, and the many
other topics being talked about today. But there is also
a Native-inspired Circle process that can tap community
resources for healing from meth in an amazing way. The
Wellbriety Conference on meth held in Denver in April,
2006 offered an afternoon of Discovery Circles and presentations
to draw on innate community knowledge.
The idea behind the Discovery Circle process is this:
the grassroots community itself has the wisdom and
knowledge to know what to do to solve its many problems,
especially its meth problem. That innate or inherent
knowledge resides in grassroots community members,
but somehow it must be drawn out of them so that it
becomes known by all, allowing the community to pick
and choose the best ideas that might work to solve
its problems. If you take a look in the dictionary,
the root meaning of the word educate means to draw
out. The Discovery Circles are an exciting and effective
educational process to help find solutions to the meth
crisis in our communities.
Discovery Circles at the Conference
Five Discovery Circles of about 12-18 participants
each were assembled from conference attendees on
Saturday, April 22, 2006 to take on four questions
about meth in their communities. Each of the four
questions had five different focuses so there were
really twenty questions that could be subdivided
among the Circles. The four basic questions were:
1-What ideas do you have to help the community declare
healing on meth?
2-How do you mobilize the community to declare healing
on meth?
3-How do we prevent meth from spreading?
4-What resources do you have to help support the community in taking a stand against meth?
For each question, the word in bold
(community) can
be community, family, leadership, youth or elders,
making up the five different focuses.
The photos, graphic images and story captions on the
cover of this issue of Wellbriety!, and on the next
pages show how the Discovery Circle process works.
You can also download a 13-page document summarizing
in more detail the outcomes of this process and how
your own community can host a Discovery Circle.
To download the 13-page summary of the Discovery Circles,
CLICK
HERE.
Discovery Circles can also be understood
as an active Ceremony in which participants’ thinking, feelings,
and energy are boosted by the Circle as a whole and
by the passion and fire arising from the pressing need
to get some ideas to solve community problems. Individuals
will be drawn out to say things and voice ideas they
never even knew they had. It is as though the group
together reaches a tipping point allowing members to
go beyond their own known limits for the sake of all.
It’s really awesome to experience and behold.
There are a number of individual steps that took place
at the Wellbriety conference to make the Discovery
Circles work. Each individual community can modify
these to suit its own needs.
Steps for Discovery Circles
1-First, formulate and ask the right questions for
the problem at hand. Keep them simple and write them
down on butcher block paper to post next to the mind
map that the group will make.
2-Prep the “mind-mapper” and
the facilitator who will lead the Circle process
about how to do a mind map and how to draw out participants
in discussion.
3-Tape a large piece of butcher block paper to the
wall near the questions and have marker pens ready.
4-Form a circle and begin with a smudge and a prayer
so as to set the tone in a good way.
5-The facilitator begins discussion by asking one
of the questions. It is very important that he or she
allows a responder to speak directly into the microphone
so that the full range of what someone says is available
later on, if necessary, for others to review as they
form an action plan for the community.
6-The facilitator, the mind mapper,
and others in the Circle condense each response to
a few key words or phrases that will fit on the mind
map. The “mind
mapper” writes the condensed response down on
the map. The mind-map grows, as the photos on the pages
of this magazine show. The process runs until time
is up or it is complete.
7-Later on, a team from each Circle is asked to hold
up the mind-map from their group and summarize it to
the entire Conference. This completes the Discovery
Circle activity as it took place at the Conference.
The Discovery Circle process itself is a resource
to community problem solving because it lets community
discussion take place with motivation. The outcome
of the mind maps, and the audio recordings that go
along with them, can next be used by other parts of
the community to arrive at a few action items that
pick the best and most relevant ideas revealed by a
Discovery Circle. The mind maps are the summary of
the problem solving session. The audio recording offers
any details that may help bring the ideas to action.
Richard Simonelli
Editor, Wellbriety! Magazine
 |
The Discovery Circle Process
Three
Discovery Circles at work. Large sheets
of butcher block paper and marker pens are the
tools the mind mapper and the facilitator use to
summarize the thoughts, feelings and words of participants
in response to four questions that appear on another
sheet of paper taped to the wall beside the mind
map. In the bottom photo, two mind mappers
work together to get ideas on paper.
|
The Discovery Circle Process
The
facilitator holds a microphone (top left photo)
so that responses can be recorded on audio tape
or CD/MP3 media so no ideas are lost. There
is often lively, energetic discussion about some
of the questions because a participant’s
home community is affected by what is being discussed
(center, right photo). The mind map itself
is the succinct summary of what took place and
the audio tape holds the complete discussion
(bottom right photo).
|
| |
| Computer Generated Mind Map |
|
A computer generated mind map created from
the paper mind map in response to the question, “What
resources do you have to help support youth in
taking a stand against meth?” The mind
map is created using the computer application
program called: Mind Manager (more information
at www.mindjet.com). The complete Discovery Circles
Summary can be downloaded. CLICK
HERE. |
|
