I facilitate family team meetings with Native families in Sioux City, Iowa at my business, Full Circle Mediation. What thrills me about working as a mediator is encountering those rare moments when people find their own empowerment and make the choices that will change their lives. I find this to be sacred work, witnessing the personal empowerment of individuals in conflict.
The foundation of my work as a Native Family Team Meeting facilitator in Sioux City is giving native people an opportunity to speak in their own voice, taking all the time they need, finding their own empowerment, speaking from the heart in their own way.
The meetings we hold at my office are official meetings; that is, a judge will at some point read the words I write down as I write the notes, distilling what people are saying in the meetings into easy-to-read bullet points. In my meetings, input from a person with three Ph.D.’s and four master’s degrees is no more — and no less — important in the meeting than the voice of a three-year-old girl, who gets to live the life we are creating for her right there in that meeting. Everyone has an equal voice, an equal say, in my meetings.
I also offer online mediation and facilitation, and blog about my experiences with mediation and collaborative communities at fullcirclemediation.wordpress.com and communitycircles.wordpress.com.
I’ve been blogging poems and hawk sightings and maintain the Facebook Talking Stick Radio page. I authored an article that appeared in the October 2012 issue of the Shaumbra Newsletter.
Talking Stick Radio 