Tag: Blake Helm Community Planning Workshop CPW

Summer Intern Series: Blake Helm

Posted on by Julia Havens

Each summer, the Community Service Center (CSC) offers paid summer internships to second-year community and regional planning students through three of its programs: the Community Planning Workshop (CPW), Oregon Partnership for Disaster Resilience (OPDR), and the Economic Development Administrative University Center (EDAUC).

CSC internships are the perfect opportunity to explore potential careers and develop skills essential to specific industries or job types within community and regional planning. You will gain hands-on real-world experiences, develop potential and make key contacts for future networking, get feedback from university faculty and industry professionals, expand resumes, and most importantly, learn about yourself. Plus with a CSC summer internship, it’s all done in the time you already have off from school!

CSC summer internships opportunities are typically announced prior to Spring break with formal offers made in late April-early May. It’s just one of the many perks of being involved with the CSC. We hope you will join the summer internship team and experience what the CSC can offer you in your quest to find your perfect career.

Active Listening and Meeting Facilitation

Posted on by Julia Havens

I am working on the Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) Update project this term with the Community Planning Workshop. A major component of the project involves meeting regularly with regional stakeholders with the main focus of these meetings being stakeholder participation. The data collected from these meetings is important information, as it will frame how the goals and objectives for the CEDS will be refined and affirmed from the previous CEDS. A key tool for successful meeting facilitation is a communication technique called active listening. Active listening is tool that promotes open communication, helps resolve conflicts, limits misunderstandings, and builds trusts among participants.

Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) UpdateReflective Feedback – a key component

A key component of active listening is providing reflective feedback. Reflective feedback summarizes or paraphrases what the speaker said and why it is important to the group. This type of interaction helps participants build relationships within their group and keeps communication open and easy.

I noticed in our first meeting that by rephrasing a speaker’s ideas and intent each participant felt that their concerns and priorities were being heard and would be incorporated into a final CEDS product. Using this technique I also noticed that it helped set the tone of the meeting and laid a foundation for clarity and understanding. Without being prompted, participants were naturally using reflective feedback as a way to communicate with each other. Such a natural response to the technique meant the meeting did not feel forced and the conversations evolved organically.

Why it works

Active listening works because it makes it easier to see the world through others’ eyes, giving us the potential to gain deeper insight and understanding into the assumptions that other perspectives adopt in their decision making process.

 

Blake Helm Community Planning Workshop CPW Resource Assistance for Rural Environments About the Author: Blake Helm is a Master’s in Community and Regional Planning student. In another life he spent his time as a rock-star slinging coffee and cake at a local bakery. Nowadays he spends most of his time keeping his 10-month-old daughter alive and writing memos.