Events

Past Conferences

Exploring Difference 2022: How Bodies Live Stories of Colonialism

This year Insight for Community Impact will once again hold the Exploring Difference Conference within the Group Relations tradition. Although Group Relations models clearly work with and draw attention to emotional and relational experiencing, the fact that emotions are felt in the body, as physical sensations, is largely ignored. You are invited as a Group Relations consultant/practitioner to join with the co-leadership group organizing this conference which will explore the ways in which colonialist relations are, Consciously and Unconsciously, inscribed on the body.

We will explore the ways in which ‘the body’ is a site of colonialism as evidenced by the historical legacies of trans-generational lived experiences and social traumas. We anticipate learning that will be challenging in both ‘being in the body’ and developing a language for what that experience entails, specifically in learning how structures of injustices (racism, gender, ability, class, etc.) are embedded in the body and the implications of this for our responsibilities and capacities to tune to and accommodate one another personally and geographically.

Click here to read more about this past event.

 

Exploring Difference 2021

The recent un/covering of unmarked graves and murders of Indigenous children forced to attend residential schools calls Canadians and the world to re-examine histories of the colonization, genocide and enslavement by the British Empire. This call requires awareness of how current privileges are built on Colonialist forces across the world to accumulate wealth, enforce cultural dominance and exploit indentured labour. How can we use our understandings to meet the demand for reparation, remembrance, recognition and reconsideration from Indigenous peoples, refugees and black , white and brown bodies with different histories, experiences and identities living on colonized lands in Canada and in many parts of the world.

This experiential learning workshop draws on the group relations tradition (www.tavinstitute.org) and will include large and small study groups; storytelling, review and application groups, and movement to uncover our projections, our defenses and the forms our resistance takes.

Click here to read more about this past event.

Past Events

A Dialogue on Adaptations Towards Social Justice in Group Relations Conferences 

June 13, 2022

Group relations conferences have traditionally been structured to examine unconscious processes related to authority. Working in the “here and now” of large and small study groups and using a formal consultancy stance to explore anxiety among members and groups, group relations conferences foster deep experiential  learning about authority.   Innovations in group relations conferences have focused on questions of power-oppression, racism, colonialism, and intersectionality.  These pressing questions have necessitated adaptations to group relations methodologies which have flourished in the past several years. Added to this the virtuality that the pandemic made possible allowed for great accessibility.  These adaptations have included: hierarchical and lateral leadership, story telling, shifting the stance of the consultant, the role of staff, movement sessions, use of symbolism through visual media and associative frameworks, music, and other creative uses of padlets as ways to deepen exploration - not only of authority, but other these other issues deeply related to questions of authority.

This event is intended for people who have directed and or worked on staff at group relations conferences using some of these or other adaptations in an effort to develop our learnings and to foster dialogue across oppressive systems and processes as a step towards social justice.

Click here to read more about this past event.

Thinking About Leadership in Rapidly Changing Times

In this time of continued uncertainty with climate change, the global pandemic and calls for social justice that reverberate across the world, how organizations structure their work, support their staff and pivot to rapidly changing environments is a key question. This five part series will provide an opportunity to learn about emerging thinking in responding to rapid and demanding change, and to talk to peers about how to manage unprecedented work challenges and support for staff.
Session 1: September 24, 2021 4-6 p.m.
Organizational Resilience in the ‘post COVID time: Responding to Overwhelming Demands: A Conversation with Barbara Williams
Free to attend
Barbara has been consulting to organizations in Canada, Central and South America, India and Africa that are faced with violent and repressive resistance to their work, the loss of leaders through the Covid pandemic and calls for assistance for immediate human survival. Barbara will present on how organizations are rethinking their work to respond to trauma, grief and overwhelming demands. Following her presentation, there will be an opportunity to think about your work as Executive Directors, senior managers and front line staff and share your discussions.
In other sessions the on-going conversation with Executive Directors, senior managers and front line staff will continue through separate break out groups. Participants will have an opportunity to talk with their peers to rethink the frameworks and assumptions that guide their decision making about support for staff and managing unpredictability.