Listening to Community Experience
The bulk of Nebraska’s engagement activities were comprised of large group active listening sessions.
Nebraska made considerable effort to find facilitators which their target audiences would find trustworthy: A retired judge from the Pomo Tribe (Judge William Thorne) and a former staff member of the California Tribal Court - State Court Forum (Jennifer Walter) facilitated the discussions. These facilitators were professionals with long experience in tribal court matters and were intentionally selected from out-of-state to serve as neutral facilitators for the Nebraska engagements.
Audience members were encouraged to speak openly about their experiences and perspectives with the judicial system before members of the Nebraska Consortium of Tribal, State, and Federal Courts. Discussion themes and points that emerged were captured and displayed in real-time on s large monitor by a transcriptionist.
Tips for Facilitation
Jennifer Walter, one of Nebraska’s professional facilitators, offered the following tips when for leading listening sessions like those held in Nebraska.
- Preparing yourself / your team to facilitate a discussion: Take time to become present before the meeting. Adopt a keen observation eye to nonverbal communication. Be mindful of what you don’t know.
- Opening activities: Take the time to make participants feel welcome, to set forth expectations (and not build them up), and to explain the process.
- Providing structure and guiding discussion that address inequities and bias in courts: Expect to hear experiences of bias and discrimination and be ready to acknowledge those experiences. Take time to pause and allow for participants to describe their experiences and, if possible, to feel some healing as they share.
- Involving judges and other court officials in discussions: After the first listening session, Nebraska explored topics that, when raised, could be turned toward the panel of judges to invite their perspective on what the courts are doing to address the issues. Nebraska was mindful about not putting the judges on the spot and the judges were open about when and what they could add to the conversation. There was some learning involved in involving the judges. By the last listening session, Nebraska facilitators felt they were able to flow back and forth between listening to participants, having them feel heard, and bringing the judges into the dialogue.
- Wrapping up discussions: The key to effectively wrapping up a discussion is to make each person feel heard by practicing active listening, synthesizing the themes raised by participants, and identifying where their identification of issues includes possible solutions.
Nebraska Team Reflections
We learned a lot about processes that do not seem to be working smoothly between jurisdictions and also within systems like DHHS and the courts. Those issues are reflected in the notes we provided with our data from the events. There is a lot to work on, but we also can see that people felt it was important to come and express their ideas and also that the courts are willing to hear from communities and work for change.
After the first event, the judges had a discussion with Judge Thorne and Jenny and were able to think about being more responsive to questions from participants. The responsiveness in the future engagements seemed to add to the value people assigned to the event.