From my experience, 'a group format' is more powerful when participants take OFF their 'professional hats,' and begin by identify the 'quadrant' they are in at the moment they are sharing. (Ex: head/intellectual, heart/emotional, hands & feet/action/relational, soul/believing.) Using this as a starting place allows a leveling playing field of connection, vs divide. Of understanding where one is coming from into the discussion.
For example, after I read the posts above, I found myself in both the 'intellectual and emotional' quadrants. I was curious about the blog and distracted by the weight I have been carrying this week in re to watching how my young adult daughter is navigating her relationship.
Am in my head because I am still trying to figure THE HOW, in sharing ACE's information with my own family/friends in a consistent and yet dynamic way; and emotionally, I am so hungry for these shared deeper conversations and learnings closer to home, and also feel incredibly frustrated when 'average' parents like me are viewed as a group to build 'engagement' but somehow, still treated as 'separate' and 'to be educated' by 'professional' groups.
As a parent and a non-professional (i.e. not in the education, medical or therapeutic field), I find often those who do not create space to 'take off' their professional hats, forget they too are parents with Generational ACE's, or know family members with ACE's; and they too experience the exact same issues of which training doesn't exempt them. (This speaks to precisely what Gail was sharing.)
Many 'un-professional' parents are very skilled, intelligent and knowledgable regarding what they are challenged with and seeking resources toward. They are their own experts. When they are 'heard and seen' as peers, rather than as 'separate,' the power of sharing is dynamic and the engagement will happen. Parents will bring this work forward faster than if it is simply left to the professionals in the field's alone.
I can not tell you how many conferences/lecture series I have gone to where I am one of the 'lone parents' who simply gained access IN because I did not 'assume' I was not as valuable to the information at the conference as the professionals or trainees in accommodating fields, and I sought out and asked permission to attend. Many other parents want to attend, but the 'invitation' is not public or known about. Inclusion is missing.
Parents bring an ability to receive the information with a different set of eyes and ears because they are not 'confined' to academia/or work related constructs.
As a parent, I am showing up precisely because it is 'personal,' and I want to offer change in my own Generational teaching.
When parents are seen as invaluable and integral participants re spreading of ACE's information and knowledge, and utilized as part of the natural-link approach to the movement, the speed of which ACE's expands to be understood, will increase two-fold. I am very convinced of this.