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 into the office for screening and to check in with them in person.
© Jennifer Kittrell & Virginia Pauls, 2022
The World Needs Dialogue!
Four: Putting Dialogue to Work
ISBN: 978-1739991159
Situation
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 into the office for screening and to check in with them in person.
Aims
Chief Virginia Pauls wanted to check in with the staff on how they are doing with managing work and adjusting to changes. The interaction would be a dialogue, and the first time the staff had all been together since March 2020. In planning the session, the Chief and the Dialogue Practitioner discussed having a Working Dialogue, but in the end felt this could be an opportunity to use the practices of dialogue to listen to one another and to come to a shared understanding, rather than trying to agree on any solutions. As such, the dialogue was facilitated solely by Deputy Chief Probation Officer Jennifer Kittrell, who is the Dialogue Practitioner for the District.