The Little Book of Transformative Community Conferencing: A Hopeful, Practical Approach to Dialogue (Justice and Peacebuilding)

When conflicts become ingrained in communities, people lose hope. Dialogue is necessary but never sufficient, and often actions prove inadequate to produce substantial change. Even worse, chosen actions create more conflict because people have different lived experiences, priorities, and approaches to transformation. So what’s the story?

In The Little Book of Transformative Community Conferencing, David Anderson Hooker offers a hopeful, accessible approach to dialogue that:

Integrates several practice approaches including restorative justice, peacebuilding, and arts
Creates welcoming, non-divisive spaces for dialogue
Names and maps complex conflicts, such as racial tensions, religious divisions, environmental issues, and community development as it narrates simple stories
Builds relationships and foundations for trust needed to support long-term community transformation projects
And results in the crafting of hopeful, future-oriented visions of community that can transform relationships, resource allocation, and structures in service of communities’ preferred narratives.

The Little Book Transformative Community Conferencing will prove valuable and timely to mediators, restorative justice practitioners, community organizers, as well as leaders of peacebuilding and change efforts. It presents an important, stand-alone process, an excellent addition to the study and practice of strategic peacebuilding, restorative justice, conflict transformation, trauma healing, and community organizing.

This book recognizes the complexity of conflict, choosing long-term solutions over inadequate quick fixes. The Transformative Community Conferencing model emerges from the author’s thirty years of practice in contexts as diverse as South Sudan; Mississippi; Greensboro, North Carolina; Oakland, California; and Nassau, Bahamas.

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• The Little Book of Racial Healing: Coming to the Table for Truth-Telling, Liberation, and Transformation (Justice and Peacebuilding)
• The Little Book of Dialogue for Difficult Subjects: A Practical, Hands-On Guide (The Little Books of Justice & Peacebuilding)
• Little Book of Circle Processes: A New/Old Approach To Peacemaking (Little Books of Justice & Peacebuilding)
• Little Book of Trauma Healing: When Violence Striked And Community Security Is Threatened
• The Little Book of Restorative Justice: Revised and Updated (Justice and Peacebuilding)
• Little Book of Healthy Organizations: Tools For Understanding And Transforming Your Organization (The Little Books of Justice & Peacebuilding)
• The Little Book of Restorative Justice in Education: Fostering Responsibility, Healing, and Hope in Schools (Justice and Peacebuilding)
• Little Book of Conflict Transformation: Clear Articulation Of The Guiding Principles By A Pioneer In The Field (The Little Books of Justice and Peacebuilding Series)
• The Little Book of Restorative Justice for Sexual Abuse: Hope through Trauma (Justice and Peacebuilding)