Resetting the Table
In partnership with Foundation for Jewish Camp, Resetting the Table (RTT) invites applications for a six-month, virtual Train-the-Trainer Intensive for Jewish professionals positioned to open up courageous conversations at summer camps across differences on Israel, U.S. politics, and other charged issues in Jewish life. We are particularly looking for professionals who are in a position to offer workshops and facilitation to multiple camps within a single summer (e.g. movement employees, independent educators, etc.) or camp professionals who are excited to embed this approach into their camp culture.
Participants will learn skills for facilitating conversations across divides, troubleshooting techniques, and how to lead RTT’s flagship Speaking Across Conflict workshop. Participants will receive individualized coaching as well as consultation on how to bring the tools and skills they have learned back to their individual contexts.
Cost: $300, generously subsidized by the Jim Joseph Foundation. Discounts are available if cost is a barrier.
Location: Zoom
Applications are due by November 1, 2024. Please contact rebecca@resettingthetable.org if you have questions.
What is Resetting the Table?
Resetting the Table (RTT) equips leaders and communities with tools and skills to overcome toxic polarization in American and Jewish life, transforming political disagreement into a source of strengthened relationship, creative problem-solving, and collective insight. Drawing from facilitation and mediation expertise, Resetting the Table’s unique approach supports participants to move through charged conversations with trained facilitators and carefully structured processes designed to support stakeholders to speak, listen, challenge each other, and make decisions together with honesty, mutual recognition and respect. RTT has brought more than 75,000 people together for communication skill-building workshops, multi-narrative educational sessions, and dialogue forums, working in partnership with 150+ college campuses, 40+ Jewish Federations, and hundreds of other organizations across the country.
Goals and Learning Objectives
Goals:
- Build Jewish camp professionals’ confidence, capacity, and hands-on experience in opening up meaningful dialogue and deliberation on Israel and other charged issues within and across their communities.
- Equip a cadre of Jewish camp professionals to train their own community members in tools and skills for courageous and constructive communication across differences.
Learning Objectives:
- Participants will learn and practice proactive facilitation techniques for achieving collaborative communication across differences.
- Participants will learn a troubleshooting framework for responding to challenging group dynamics.
- Participants will learn to apply tools in programs including structured workshops, staff training, teen programs, Israel trips, and contentious decision-making processes.
- Participants will model a rare experience of dialogue across differences with each other.
Program Schedule
The Facilitation Training Intensive includes ten 2.5-hour training sessions, two coached practice sessions, and opportunities for one-on-one consultation with RTT staff. All sessions will take place on Zoom. All sessions will be from 10am-12:30 PT/1pm-3:30 ET unless otherwise noted.
Schedule:
- Wednesday, January 22. Skill I: Following Meaning
- Thursday, January 23. Skill II: Demonstrating Understanding
- Thursday, January 30. Skill III: Naming Differences
- February 3-12. Coached Practice Session in Pairs (One 90-min. session scheduled around trainees’ availability)
- Thursday, February 6. Working with Your Own Reactivity (Optional)
- Thursday, February 13. Skill IV: Connecting the Dots and Putting it all Together
- Thursday, February 27. Troubleshooting Challenging Group Dynamics
- Thursday, March 6. Applications to Your Work
- Thursday, March 20. Introductory Overview to the Speaking Across Conflict (SAC) Workshop
- Thursday, March 27. Coaching for the SAC Workshop
- March 31-April 1. Practice Sessions for Leading SAC Workshop (One 90-min. session scheduled around trainees’ availability)
- April-May. Workshop Planning 1:1s with RTT staff.
- May-June. Trainees will facilitate workshops and small group conversations within their own communities, with support from RTT staff.
- TBD. Closing Session and Celebration
Testimonials
“The framing Resetting the Table provides is more important now than ever. Our communities need more instruction like this on how to listen to, and respect, different points of view. I hope to apply these skills in staff training, supporting my colleagues in skilled listening. This is an essential tool for the first week of camp.”
— Jane-Rachel Schonbrun, Director, Camp Yavneh
“Resetting the Table provides a healthy opportunity to look at addressing conflict in a safe and non-confrontational way. Using skills that we all have the potential to use, but often don’t leverage – like listening without leading, seeking meaning rather than inserting our own opinions – people who have differences of opinion to come together and understand one another.”
— Lori Zlotoff, Inclusion Coordinator, URJ Camp Harlam
“This program is incredibly helpful in gaining tangible skills to engage in discussions across divides. After attending this workshop, I immediately noticed myself actively implanting the skills that I learned when I speak to others. I plan to continue using them both in working with camp leadership and my interactions with the larger Jewish world, and I hope to continue participating and engaging in more discussions and understanding across difference.”
— Judah Altman, Mazkirol (Executive Director), Habonim Dror Camp Association