TOOLS AND RESOURCES – The Community Café Collaborative

The Community Café site represents the collective wisdom of many family stories. We stand on the shoulders of our ancestors and the generations before us who not only passed on their stories but sacrificed life and substance so we could have a voice. Guidance from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. helped us dream of a “beloved community” and gave us the courage to say the words out loud.

Here are some of the resources we’ve used to inform our thinking, affirm the work, communicate with others about what the work is, or get inspiration. Please feel free to share your own resources, questions, harvests and learning with the rest of the Community Café collaborative at info@thecommunitycafe.org.

Online Resources

Strengthening Families Through Early Care and Education by the Center for the Study of Social Policy, www.cssp.org plus information about the protective factor framework

www.ctfalliance.org for more information about Children’s Trust Funds and national child abuse and neglect prevention work

www.theworldcafe.com for tools, inspiration, networks and contacts to those hosting World Cafés for a myriad of reasons

www.abundantcommunity.com for a book and to connect to the collaborative work and network of John McKnight and Peter Block

Books

The World Café: Changing the World One Conversation at a Time by Juanita Brown

Community the Structure of Belonging by Peter Block for more on convening to build community

Parenting from the Inside Out by Daniel Siegel for parenting

Internal Family Systems Therapy by Richard C. Schwartz for more on Self Leadership from a therapeutic perspective and to read from the original source of the concept

Turning to One Another and the article “Using Emergence to Take Social Innovation to Scale,” by Margaret Wheatley or almost anything by Margaret Wheatley

Appreciative Inquiry A Positive Revolution in Change by David Cooperrider and Diana Whitney for more on Appreciative Inquiry

Abundant Community: Awakening the Power of Families and Communities byJohn McKnight and Peter Block for when you start to feel you can’t strengthen families or build a stronger neighborhood without more money or resources

Documents

Community Café Resources:

These tools were developed over time by our leadership team. We are all learning together and want to share these tools to help facilitate your work in your community. We hope you will provide us feedback about whether the tools are helpful and share tips and tools of your own. Please feel free to copy and distribute these to others. These tools are available at no cost and we only ask that you site this website as your source if you use any of these materials in your printed documents. Click a language to download these PDF documents.

WHAT WE DO

The Community Café Approach

ORIENTATION GUIDE

Orientation Guide to the Community Café Approach (English and Spanish)

Guide to Forming a Community Café Leadership Team (English)

HOSTING

Quick Guide (English, Spanish, and Russian)

Documenting the Harvest (English and Spanish)

Tips for Hosting (English, Spanish, and Russian)

Conversation Template (English, Spanish, and Russian)

Designing Questions (English, Spanish, and Russian)

Flow Agenda Template (English, Spanish, and Russian)