Overview

In cooperation with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), NACCHO is working to address communication issues, particularly as they relate to strengthening interactions among members of the community. Participation of community residents is vital throughout the MAPP process to assure a truly community driven initiative. Since 1995, CDC and NACCHO have worked with Cross River Connections (CRC) to bring Dialogue into the public health process.

Incorporating Dialogue into the use of MAPP has helped build the skills needed to undertake a community driven process and assure that the community's strengths, needs, and desires are identified and utilized. CRC works directly with the MAPP project work group and staff members to provide information about Dialogue skills and capacity. CRC, in cooperation with CDC and NACCHO, has also worked directly with staff within state and local health departments to address those skills needed to undertake a community driven process, such as MAPP.

Dialogue is the art of "thinking together." It involves transcending individual perspectives to discover a larger resolution: a "We" result. It does this through a combination of:

• Awareness of one's own assumptions, in a way that allows them to be held lightly, as well as deliberately.
• Skills of listening that clarify and validate other perspectives, rather than beat them down (the meaning of debate: 'de-battere), producing better mutual understanding.
• The art of holding differences together in a way that allows shared understanding to emerge. When there is shared understanding, there is greater likelihood of true shared agreement.

Contact Information for Cross River Connections:
CROSS RIVER CONNECTIONS
P.O. Box 194, Cross River, NY 10518
Tel./Fax 914-977-3097
E-mail: danielmartin@optonline.net