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Governor's Task Force on Health CareSpring, 1992For the Governor's Task Force on Health Care (Kentucky), RKI designed public forums to be held in the 15 Area Development Districts in Kentucky and trained volunteer moderators and reporters to conduct those sessions. We carried out this work in conjunction with the Kentucky Center for Public Issues. We found the design work particularly challenging because we wanted to offer opportunities for citizen engagement in these forums that went beyond the usual public hearing format. On the other hand, we knew that some of these sessions would attract hundreds of participants. As we had observed when we trained teams of citizen volunteer facilitators to moderate the Prichard Committee's 150+ town forums in 1984, a substantial number of the volunteer facilitators became quite engaged in their work. They sought additional opportunities for cultivating good and innovative forms of public talk. These early experiences with citizen volunteers contributed to our long-term commitment to cultivate both the facilitation and research skills of "regular people." We have followed that original idea in many of our projects, and have had good success. In addition to the improvements the citizen volunteers make in the sessions they run, the experience changes the facilitators themselves and makes them more interested, active, and committed to public life. 
Visit other descriptions of our work in the area of community change and citizen engagement. |
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