The Common Ground Network for Life and Choice Manual

Friday, February 5
8:30 AM: Check-in (at registration table) and continental breakfast
9:00-9:15: Large Group Session: Welcome and housekeeping business. (Lead Facilitators)
9:15-9:45: Listening to Community Parents.
A panel of parents facilitated by two community members responds to the following questions:
1. Why do you think Glendale has such a high rate of teen pregnancy?
2. Why do you care about this issue?
3. What are some programs that you have been involved with that you thought really worked? What
are some that haven't worked?
4. What do you need from the community to support you as a parent?
9:45-11:00: Continuation of Small Group Session (same small groups as night before)
1. Reactions to parent panel.
Ask members to discuss what they heard from the parent panel that "connected" with them. One way
of doing this is to ask: "What did you hear that surprised/delighted/frustrated/etc. you?"
2. Listing causes of teen pregnancy (continued.)
As in the previous evening’s discussion encourage questions of genuine curiosity or for clarification;
discourage questions designed to put the speaker on the defensive. When the conversation seems to be
concluding, ask members to look at the list begun the night before to insure that all significant causes
have been included. Is there anything to add? If so, the Recorder adds any additional points to the
newsprint list.
3. Developing a "common ground" list of teen pregnancy causes.
Ask participants to review the "teen pregnancy causes" list and ask themselves if there is anything
there with which they disagree. If disagreements come forth, assist members to seek some
understanding concerning these areas of disagreement through such techniques as active (reflective)
listening. It may be useful to create a list of disagreements. Tell the group that attempting to resolve
these areas of disagreement will not be a focus for the balance of the meeting, but rather the group will
focus on the common ground. Using the overlapping circles image can help to clarify this.
Recorders produce a list of "common ground causes" on a new sheet of newsprint.
4. Reframing causes to desired solutions/outcomes.
The goal here is for the group to take the causes on its list and recast these from “problems” to
“solutions.” For example, "no communication between parents and kids" can be restated positively as
“foster open communication between parents and kids.” “Family breakdown” can become
“supporting families". Encourage the group to define their solutions/outcomes as concretely as
possible. Using one of the above examples, inquire as to what “open communication” between parents
and youth looks like.
Recorders list the "desired solutions" on another sheet of newsprint, side-by-side with the original
causes. Before concluding this section, a volunteer is recruited to make a brief "progress report" at
the next large group session.
5. Discovering effective programs/approaches.
Alert members that they are now going to "shift gears" from the causes and solution of teen pregnancy
to sharing information about effective programs and approaches already in place that are contributing