The Partnership Café at the
Alaska Department of Health and Social Services

by Barbara Belknap

In September 2005, the Alaska Department of Health & Social Services put out a Request for Proposals for a facilitator specifically skilled in World Café. Friends of mine who knew about my training with the Berkana Institute on Bowen Island in December 2004 gave me a heads up. Mary A., the Program Coordinator, and a colleague interviewed me and I won the contract. Mary had a core group of five DHSS employees who had volunteered to help organize a gathering of over one hundred DHSS and non-profit managers for Partnership Day in Juneau's Centennial Hall on October 25, 2006.

When the new Administration came in, there was a massive reorganization of the department. While everything was sorted out on the organizational chart, people weren't communicating, cases were dropping through the cracks, and morale was low. The Commissioner wanted everyone to think in terms of partnering. There was a program called the Alaska Healthy Families Partnership, but it was proving difficult to put into practice.

The invitation to managers and non-profits to the Partnership Café promised training to entice the time-starved managers to take the time to travel to Juneau or to carve a day out of their hectic schedules. The cafe would be bracketed by two speakers from the Idaho and New Mexico Departments of Health & Social Services, who would talk about their experiences with mandated change. This was the "manager education" part.

Finding a question that matters was a very interesting and exciting experience. I gave the team the criteria and what happened next was right out of The World Café. It started with "If my family needed help from DHSS, how would I expect to be treated and what kind of plan, or coordinated effort, would work for me?" Ten suggested questions later, they decided upon "What could our partnerships be?" The second round would be "What are the nuts and bolts things we can do to make this work?"

Our organizing team met several times to talk about logistics and the challenge of simulating a cafe atmosphere in the cavernous Centennial Hall, which has no windows, 25-foot ceilings, and only one size of table. Each one seats eight people. Mary had downloaded table tents from the World Café website with the guidelines on them. She put colorful stickers with the World Cafe logo on clear glass mugs to hold the markers. Another team member cut out 20 black and white checkered circles for the center of the tables. Another brought small bunches of artificial flowers for the mugs. A big screen was set up for the speakers' power point presentations. It was also a dramatic way to display the question.

On October 25, the huge hall was filled with tables for eight. It was hardly an intimate cozy cafe atmosphere, but we worked with what we had. After the first speaker finished, everyone took a break to get coffee and snacks. Then, I asked everyone to find a table with people they did not work with or know very well. I explained the concept of the World  Café, asked them to listen for themes, and we "unveiled" the question on the big screen. Immediately, a buzz of conversation filled the room. There were quite a few artists in the group, who filled the paper up with drawings. A few insisted on using ballpoint pens to write in neat rows. The hosts transferred ideas onto large sticky notes. When we finished the first round, Mary and I took the portable microphone around and asked for feedback as the townhall segment. As people expressed ideas, my colleague, Darcy Richards, drew a mural on a ten foot sheet of butcher paper. Before the lunch break, the hosts put their sticky notes on large colored poster paper on the walls. I encouraged everyone to do a Gallery Walk when they got back from lunch. After lunch, we had the second question, "What are the nuts and bolts thing we can do to make this work?" Again, I asked them to sit with new people. This conversation was very animated as well. During the town hall segment, Darcy finished up her mural.

I learned that this process works with very large groups. Some said that they came in exasperated that they were being pulled away from work, but that it was a great experience that gave them hope. The Deputy Commissioner read back to them what they said during the town halls and said he wanted to hear from each one of them personally to make it all work. It was gratifying at the end of the day to see the hope in people's faces.

As mentioned in The World Café, it's a challenge to do a report that travels well. We took photos of the people and there was video made that captured conversations. I also took pictures of all the artwork and kept all the sticky notes. These were divided into themes. Under each theme, I wrote down their notes verbatim in hopes that it would help continue the conversation in all the various agencies and offices. I included photos of Darcy's mural, particularly the steaming coffee cups with with "keep the conversation going" and a tree with deep roots. However, I think that having a graphic recorder is a "nice to have" that I would not do again unless there was a place within the institution to display the mural and spark conversation.

A few weeks after the Café, I emailed one of the team members to ask him if anything had changed as a result of the gathering. He came back with a list of a dozen new initiatives that were a direct result of the Partnership Cafe just for his agency. He also said that people met afterwards at a reception and he overheard several groups making plans to partner.

It was a very gratifying experience to help people who are of such critical importance to the people of Alaska.

Barbara Belknap is a consultant and World Café host living in Alaska.