Trust in the Leader of Collaborative Process Design and Facilitation
SKILL SK-24 | Negotiation & Mediation
Trauma-Informed Engagement
The ability to recognize when community members may be carrying unresolved harm from prior experiences - displacement, broken promises, historical injustice - and to engage in ways that do not re-traumatize, dismiss, or exploit that history.
How to Develop It
1. Trauma history briefing
Before entering a new community, interview at least two long-term residents or CSO partners about prior development experiences, broken promises, and historical harms. Use this to adjust the entry approach - including pace, format, and opening framing.
2. Acknowledgement practice
Practice acknowledging prior harm without accepting individual blame. Draft and role-play the opening statement for a community that has experienced broken promises from prior projects: what to say, what not to say, and how to validate experience without creating legal liability.
3. Pacing review
Review your last three engagement sequences. At each point ask: was the pace driven by the project timeline or by community readiness? Identify moments where community readiness was sacrificed to project speed. Redesign those moments.
Why This Skill Matters
Many communities targeted for renewable energy development have prior histories of displacement, failed promises, or institutional harm. Entering these contexts with standard approaches - assuming good faith from all institutional actors, rushing to agreement - can reactivate harm.
Observable Behaviors
+ Seeks information about the community prior experiences with development projects before engaging
+ Does not rush engagement - allows time for trust before moving to substantive discussions
+ Acknowledges prior harm where it exists without necessarily accepting individual blame
+ Recognizes signs of re-traumatization and adjusts approach accordingly
+ Does not treat distrust as an obstacle - treats it as information about prior experience
Self-Assessment
Read each Reflective Question below and honestly consider how consistently you demonstrate this in your actual fieldwork, not how you think you should behave, but how you do behave. Then assign a score from 1 (lowest) to 4 (highest):
(1) Not yet developed: Rarely demonstrated in practice
(2) Emerging: Demonstrated sometimes, but inconsistently or only under favorable conditions
(3) Established: Demonstrated reliably in most situations, including moderately challenging ones
(4) Adaptive: Demonstrated reliably even in high-pressure situations, and practitioner actively helps
Common Gaps & Pitfalls
! Treating distrust as irrational rather than as a rational response to prior experience
! Moving through an acknowledgement quickly to get to the project - the acknowledgement is the project in those moments
! Applying trauma-informed approaches only in formal therapeutic contexts, not in development engagement
Reflective Questions Score from 1 (lowest) to 4 (highest):
I seek information about community prior project experiences and history of institutional harm before engaging
I pace engagement based on community readiness, not just project timelines
I can acknowledge prior harm in ways that validate community experience without creating legal liability
I recognize signs of re-traumatization and adjust my approach accordingly
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