As the Director of Graduate Medical Education (GME) at an academic medical center, I oversee the requirements of the resident physician training programs. Resident physicians (residents) are in the final phase of medical education. They are learners who have graduated from medical school and are training in their selected medical specialty field with supervision. At the completion of residency training, these physicians are eligible to be licensed, board certified, independen

In 2010, the Virginia Department of Corrections (VADOC) was in transition. The goal of the newly elected Governor was to enhance public safety with a focus on reducing victimization, improving the outcomes for offenders returning to their communities, and reducing recidivism by strengthening re-entry programs. Thus the Virginia Adult Re-Entry Initiative was established. The Governor searched for a new Director for the Department to further that mission. The question for the a

This paper deals with dialogical development in basic education within one Finnish municipality. More specifically, it is development work done together with professionals working with students with special needs. The development has been carried out through the project Renewing Dialogues in Social and Health Care – Leadership, Well-Being and Productivity (European Social Fund Development, 2019–2021). The project aims to promote dialogue and work well-being in Finnish workpla

This paper will explore the basic principles of dialogic team coaching in TAMK Proakatemia, a special unit of entrepreneurship education in Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK) in Finland. Currently the learning community of Proakatemia consists of about 150 students studying in the Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA), Entrepreneurship and Team Leadership, and physical therapist programmes; 11 coaches; about 20 students in the MBA in Entrepreneurship programme;

This is the story of a six-month intervention that enabled the successful handover of a government-run prison in the UK to a private company in 2011. I will be describing the mobilisation phase of privatisation; it is one chapter in a longer story of the transformation of the prison in private hands, and – although I won’t be covering it in detail here – nine years later the collapse of safety and security at the same prison to the point it was returned to government manageme

The Ubuntu Addiction Community Trust is a non profit and public benefit organisation that supports individuals, families, organisations and communities in addressing substance use disorders. David Collins, the founder of UACT, recognized that recovery coaching could add a forward thinking, solutions driven approach to the therapeutic and group support work already supporting the addiction space in South Africa. In 2016, UACT established a Workplace platform to support and emp

I invite you to an exploration into the ways the Digital Ecosystem—the interrelated web of thinking and technology—may promote a step forward for Deep Dialogue, and for Professional Dialogue expansion.

Like all of the Virginia Department of Corrections (VADOC), by May of 2121 District 34 (Williamsburg Probation and Parole) staff had been figuring out how to effectively work to protect the community, meet probationers’ needs, and balance very different lives at home for just over a year since the Covid-19 state of emergency had been declared. Children were just returning to classrooms after being homeschooled and staff were hoping to find ways to safely bring probationers in

Marion Correctional Treatment Center (MCTC) is the state mental health facility for adult males. MCTC houses a maximum of 191 mental health inmates of varying security levels and up to 180 Cadre inmates, our minimum-security workforce. There are inherent challenges having two diverse populations, such as controlling contraband, ensuring facility operations are maintained, controlling movement, and allowing breaks for kitchen staff. The scheduling for kitchen workers affects m

This exploratory journey was jump-started by an invitation to write about an economic crisis within a large commercial enterprise, and how dialogue played a role in overcoming not only that temporary situation, but also many other emerging challenges. The experience I will describe took place many years ago, but it makes an ongoing case for the dialogical challenges and opportunities in complex private businesses, where everybody is a client from a particular perspective. It

Sometimes an opportunity presents itself to stand back and take a look at what we are doing and how well we are managing. Such a situation arose when our prison District # 11 Probation & Parole unit was invited to participate with the Department of Medical Assistance (DMAS) on a Support Act Planning Grant. The grant is designed to support DMAS’s work to increase substance use disorder (SUD) provider capacity in the State of Virginia and assist the efforts of the Virginia Depa

South Africa (SA) is a developing country with a population of 55.7 million, an unemployment rate of 34.4%, a poverty rate of 55.5% and a Gini index (a measure of income inequality) of 63 (100 = maximum inequality). The SA Government views socio-economic development (SED) as a key driver to address these dire social imbalances. As a result, SED is a key component of government initiatives. Communities often see it as a panacea to poverty and addressing immediate needs, includ

In Los Angeles, California, the combination of income inequality, exorbitant prices for homes and rentals, exclusionary neighborhoods and the stigmatization of homelessness have all contributed to a housing crisis that has only been amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic. Persistent cultural norms allow us to distance ourselves from those most marginalized in our communities, resulting in a diffusion of responsibility in affluent areas where homelessness coexists and is at an all

Our society has many issues, all of which come from a dysfunctional root—one that is built from the narrative that we are separate from the world. The education system is the foundation from which our culture is constructed and maintained. Over time the system, through fear and coercion, perpetuates the belief that we are separate from one another and nature. Because of this, most of us live in conflict and dysfunction within ourselves, in our relationships and collectively w

The city of Brussels is multicultural and multilingual, with a population of around 1.2 million inhabitants originating from 184 different countries. Brussels hosts international organisations and the European Institutions. What happens elsewhere in the world is felt in Brussels and impacts the work and life of its population. This was particularly tangible in the aftermath of 9/11 when public opinion associated all Muslims directly with terrorism. The presence of armed force

Among dialogue practitioners few, if any, have continued to use group dialogue in the original format proposed in 1991 by David Bohm and his colleagues Peter Garrett and Donald Factor. In the United States, despite major efforts by William Isaacs and his colleagues at his firm Dialogos to introduce this mode of “thinking together” in organizations, the method in its “pure form” did not take root. In Quebec, Canada, efforts were made to use Bohm dialogue with managers and prof

In 2021 the Derby Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) hired our firm, Dialogic Action CIC to work with them to improve and develop their services for autism and neurodiverse communities. This case study describes and evaluates this piece of work; the study was co-produced by the stakeholders and participants in the project itself. CCG faced several problems: specifically, they noted that their different services were fragmented, leading to a lack of coherence. Waiting lists we

Autism is a lifelong developmental condition that mainly afects how people perceive their environment and how they interact with others. Autistic people experience the world differently to non-autistic people and it is often, but not always, debilitating. An autistic person may also have other conditions within the autism spectrum, learning disabilities and/or mental health issues, and may receive a diferent level or way of support from other autistic people. © Jonathan Drury

It is my perception, which seems to be fairly commonly shared by others as reality, that the pace of change in the world is getting faster. There are various terms relating to this, whether they be the originally military ‘VUCA’ acronym (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity andAmbiguity) or ‘Age of Accelerations’, coined by Thomas L. Friedman. However this experience is labelled, leaders and teams in organisations need to find increasing levels of responsiveness and agility to

Special Response Teams (SRT) provide the Virginia Department of Corrections (VADOC) with specially trained and equipped teams available for a rapid response to VADOC critical incidents at their local facility or other VADOC units. SRT members are also utilized for missions determined to be high-risk, such as riots and disturbances, and to provide support for other security operations throughout the Department. Over the past few years, membership had significantly decreased at