Professional Development Retreat
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6: Conflict Evolution: Collaborative Teamwork Retreat
A Professional Development Training Retreat – Dive deep into the relationship between dominant culture and conflict avoidance and how we evolve the fear of conflict into a generative practice essential for transformational change.
An intimate training retreat experience held at Grandmother Cherry Sanctuary – an herbal healing sanctuary in the forest. We will lean info the support of this healing space to build capacity for embodying direct communication about comfort, its relationship to conflict, and how to generate productive conflict that can transform team dynamics for meeting the challenges of our times.
This retreat will build skills for:
- Build capacity for embodying discomfort as a collective group experience
- Communicate about dominant culture norms and the direct harm associated with conflict avoidance
- Diagnose group conflict break downs and navigate antidotes and strategies for conflict evolution
- Nervous system regulation practices for small groups and teams to improve conflict resilience
- Relationship and trust building foundations for conflict evolution
- Understand personal, interpersonal, and group behaviors around conflict
Your retreat experience is intentionally designed as a training with spaciousness for emergence and exploring specific situations participants are navigating. Retreat facilitators will guide participants through embodied experiential learning of both the concepts prepared and issues and questions raised in real time. The result is a vulnerable, shared learning space that is shaped by participants and facilitators working collaboratively together. The process and experience will serve as a key aspect of the training retreat, perhaps even more so than the content.
Conflict avoidance is one of the primary collusion tools encouraged in dominant culture to uphold the characteristics of patriarchy, white supremacy, colonialism, and oppression. Learning how to effectively engage in conflict is one of the keys to transforming systems for collective liberation.
Meet the Facilitators
Rae Carter (she/ki) is a trauma-informed facilitator, communication specialist, and the founder of EmpowR Transformation. Ki is an equity consultant with The Creative Discourse Group and a healing arts practitioner in the University of Vermont Integrative Practitioner Network. Ki draws from her 20+ year career in organizational communication, public relations, and grassroots community engagement as well as her lived experience and study of personal and cultural somatics as it relates to conflict evolution. Rae weaves embodied antiracist culture building, gender expansiveness, experiential and nature-based learning, trauma-informed practices, holistic healing, and animist spirituality into capacity building work to shift limited perspectives, disrupt dominant patterns, navigate conflict, reimagine communication, and bridge micro and macro behavior change for transformative justice and how to apply transformational change in workplace communication and culture.
Mia Moore (she/her) is the owner and principal at Mia Moore Consulting, working with managers and executives to lead their teams in ways that are human-centered, inclusive, and results-oriented. She is passionate about using strong, supportive management and organizational systems in the work for equity and justice. She works one-on-one with leaders who are looking to improve their skills in communication (both sharing and listening), collaboration, decision-making, and building their awareness of the impact their actions have on others. She works with teams to increase their capacity for collaboration, whether that means improved communication or co-creating better tools, or a bit of both. Mia believes leadership means listening, learning, humility, and collaboration. One of the most damaging myths of being a leader is the assumption that they need to know all the answers when in fact saying “I don’t know, let’s figure it out together” is much more effective and powerful. She strives for both clarity and vulnerability in her own communication; and she is constantly looking to learn and grow.
Details
Who is this retreat for?
The Conflict Evolution Retreat is for leadership and management staff who work at nonprofits, government agencies and municipalities, businesses, and institutions as well as leaders and facilitators of groups and community-led efforts.
Where is this retreat held?
At Grandmother Cherry Sanctuary, which is also Rae Carter’s home, in Plainfield, Vermont. This is an in person training retreat and directions will be sent in registration/follow up emails.
How do I prepare?
Please prepare by planning to be off of your device for the entire retreat, including lunch. Wear comfortable, casual clothes that express your identity and bring some items that help you feel cozy (slippers, blanket, cushion) as we will be sitting in circle together for much of the day.
What do I bring?
Bring a basic lunch to meet your dietary needs. There is a fridge and a stove, but no microwave. Bring a water bottle, journal, writing utensil, and and open heart and mind.
What will be provided?
We will provide coffee and tea as well as snacks throughout the day. We will also provide resources and materials following the retreat.
Timing
The retreat will begin at 9:30 and you are asked to prepare enough travel time to arrive, ground, and use the facilities so we can open circle at 9:30. We will close circle at 4:30.
Directions and additional information will be provided upon registration.
