National coalition building institute
Encyclopedia
The National Coalition Building Institute (NCBI) is a nonprofit leadership training organization based in Washington, D.C.
and intergroup conflict in communities throughout the world. NCBI's approach is based on Re-evaluation Counseling
(or Co-counseling), which was founded in the 1950s by Harvey Jackins
. According to RC, humans' willingness to oppress and to be oppressed is a result of distress recordings that are installed by early hurts, usually during childhood, and which are restimulated throughout people's lives. Co-counseling leads to discharge,the process by which the human organism rids itself—by shivering, yawning, laughing, perspiring, raging, and nonrepetitivve talking—of these harmful distress recordings that are the basis of oppression. Jackins writes that "The re-emergence from distress patterns which we co-counsel to achieve is the dependably long-range channel for achieving the liberation of humans from all oppressions."
NCBI trains community leaders who in bridge-building skills to combat intergroup conflicts. NCBI's motto is "Every issue counts" which means that no type of oppression (racism
, classism
, sexism
, etc.) takes priority over another. NCBI focuses on sharing personal stories of discrimination and mistreatment without shaming or blaming the perpetrators and on building allies in other groups so that members of oppressed groups are not isolated.
-based teams, known as Campus Affiliates. Most NCBI chapters include participants from public and private school
s, local businesses, law enforcement agencies, religious institutions, community organizations, trade union
s, and government offices. The local leadership teams embody all sectors of the community, including elected officials
, law enforcement officers, government workers, educators, students, business executives, labor union leaders, community activists, and religious leaders. These community leaders work together as a resource team to deal with prejudice and intergroup tensions.
NCBI teams meet regularly and lead prejudice reduction programs for organizations in their communities, and they intervene with conflict resolution
skills when intergroup conflicts arise. They may also offer programs that help organizations to build inclusive environments. NCBI Chapters provide an opportunity for community people from all different ages and backgrounds to get to know one another, to build enough trust to bridge group isolation. An NCBI Chapter can offer a model for the rest of the community, showing how human beings can cooperate across group divisions.
NCBI has conducted diversity programs on hundreds of college campuses. There are active Campus Affiliates at 65 colleges and universities in the United States and Canada. An NCBI Campus Affiliate consists of a representative cross-section of students, faculty, and administrators, trained by NCBI, to provide a pro-active response to discrimination and inter-group conflict on campus. The NCBI-trained team offers year-long leadership workshops that create a more inclusive campus environment. Participants in the team-led workshops acquire skills for shifting prejudicial attitudes and learn how to become more effective allies for one another.
A college or university becomes an NCBI Campus Affiliate by paying a lead trainer from NCBI headquarters to lead a three-day Train-the-Trainer Seminar. In this training, campus participants learn how to lead the eight-hour Prejudice Reduction Workshop and the NCBI Controversial Issue Process. Following the Train-the-Trainer Seminar, NCBI, in consultation with the sponsoring institution, selects a Campus Affiliate Director. The Affiliate Director leads the campus team and serves as the liaison with the NCBI National Office. The NCBI Campus Program Director, an experienced campus consultant, offers monthly telephone support and supervision to the Affiliate Director. Members of the campus team also receive ongoing training and support through monthly campus meetings as well as through NCBI's Annual National Campus Conference, where Campus Affiliates share resources and information on best practice
s.
Chapters contribute 10% of income generated from fee-for-service
work back to NCBI headquarters. No chapters have paid full-time
staff and are generally run from a combination of volunteers and paid consultants who conduct trainings and related programs in their local community
.
The NCBI workshop is experiential in order to move people to new understandings about oppression and prejudice because of its focus on personal stories. All NCBI programming is always co-led or co-facilitated to demonstrated how people can support each other's leadership and be effective allies to one another across group lines. For these reasons, trainer teams typically cross groups lines of sex, race, age, sexual orientation
or several of these.
As in any other workshop the facilitators take the time to review some ground rules as well as give an overview of the day. The first part of the workshop is designed to create some safety among the attendees by offering them a chance to see the things that they hold in common with each other. From this exercise, participants have a chance to share their multiple identities with another participant.
From this base, the model then moves to exposing stereotypes we all hold of each other. After processing that information, participants then look at that ways in which they have internalized these stereotypes of the groups to which they belong.
Following these exercises, participants have the opportunity to participate in caucuses choosing one of their identities to focus on. The caucus reports allow participants to share things they never want to hear about their group again as well as things that they want participants to know about their group and things they never want to hear about their group.
The next section, Speak Outs, a few people are asked to share a story of a time when they experienced painful discrimination or mistreatment.
The workshop ends with strategies and intervention skills to help participants learn to interrupt prejudicial remarks, slurs or jokes. During a role-play exercise, participants learn that to effectively mitigate prejudice they must be in a place to listen to the person who made the comment, to engage that person in dialogue, and to allow this person to share their perspective. Participants come to understand that only through listening and engaging people in further dialogue, can they help others move to a new understanding of oppression.
recognized NCBI's campus work as a "promising practice," a designation of excellence given to only a handful of programs in the United States.
The national news media has reported on the effectiveness of NCBI programs. The Washington Post
published a front page story on the significance of NCBI's work with young people. ABC World News
featured NCBI as a "program that works." On the anniversary of the Los Angeles riots, The Los Angeles Times
published a feature story on NCBI in its Sunday Magazine, citing NCBI's work in Los Angeles as some of the most important anti-racism
work being done in the city. Weekly, the newsletter of the National League of Cities
, in a special supplement, urged local elected officials to enlist the assistance of NCBI in creating proactive solutions to racial tensions. Stories on the success of NCBI's work have also appeared in The New York Times
, USA Today
, The Chicago Tribune
, The Boston Globe
, and on National Public Radio.
Critics of Re-Evaluation Counseling have tried to associate NCBI with critiques of Re-evaluation Counseling. The National Coalition Building Institute is formally independent of Re-Evaluation Counseling but is linked through Cherie R. Brown, its Founder-Executive Director, who is also a member of RC and active in the Re-evaluation Counseling affiliate organization United to End Racism. Brown has acknowledged that she has learned a great deal about anti-oppression work from Re-evaluation Counseling.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
Foundation and approach
NCBI was founded by Cherie R. Brown in 1984. Its mission is to help eliminate prejudicePrejudice
Prejudice is making a judgment or assumption about someone or something before having enough knowledge to be able to do so with guaranteed accuracy, or "judging a book by its cover"...
and intergroup conflict in communities throughout the world. NCBI's approach is based on Re-evaluation Counseling
Re-evaluation Counseling
Re-evaluation Counseling or RC is an organization founded by Harvey Jackins in the 1950s and led by him until his death in 1999. It introduced a procedure called "co-counseling", which Jackins said was a new and effective method of helping people and bringing about social reform. RC teaches...
(or Co-counseling), which was founded in the 1950s by Harvey Jackins
Harvey Jackins
Carl Harvey Jackins was the founder, leader and principal theorist of Re-evaluation Counseling .-Early life:Jackins was born in Northern Idaho on June 28, 1916....
. According to RC, humans' willingness to oppress and to be oppressed is a result of distress recordings that are installed by early hurts, usually during childhood, and which are restimulated throughout people's lives. Co-counseling leads to discharge,the process by which the human organism rids itself—by shivering, yawning, laughing, perspiring, raging, and nonrepetitivve talking—of these harmful distress recordings that are the basis of oppression. Jackins writes that "The re-emergence from distress patterns which we co-counsel to achieve is the dependably long-range channel for achieving the liberation of humans from all oppressions."
NCBI trains community leaders who in bridge-building skills to combat intergroup conflicts. NCBI's motto is "Every issue counts" which means that no type of oppression (racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
, classism
Classism
Classism is prejudice or discrimination on the basis of social class. It includes individual attitudes and behaviors, systems of policies and practices that are set up to benefit the upper classes at the expense of the lower classes...
, sexism
Sexism
Sexism, also known as gender discrimination or sex discrimination, is the application of the belief or attitude that there are characteristics implicit to one's gender that indirectly affect one's abilities in unrelated areas...
, etc.) takes priority over another. NCBI focuses on sharing personal stories of discrimination and mistreatment without shaming or blaming the perpetrators and on building allies in other groups so that members of oppressed groups are not isolated.
Chapters & Affiliates
Currently NCBI has 50 city-based leadership teams, known as NCBI Chapters; 30 organization-based leadership teams, known as NCBI Affiliates; and over 60 college/universityHigher education
Higher, post-secondary, tertiary, or third level education refers to the stage of learning that occurs at universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, and institutes of technology...
-based teams, known as Campus Affiliates. Most NCBI chapters include participants from public and private school
Private school
Private schools, also known as independent schools or nonstate schools, are not administered by local, state or national governments; thus, they retain the right to select their students and are funded in whole or in part by charging their students' tuition, rather than relying on mandatory...
s, local businesses, law enforcement agencies, religious institutions, community organizations, trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
s, and government offices. The local leadership teams embody all sectors of the community, including elected officials
Official
An official is someone who holds an office in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority .A government official or functionary is an official who is involved in public...
, law enforcement officers, government workers, educators, students, business executives, labor union leaders, community activists, and religious leaders. These community leaders work together as a resource team to deal with prejudice and intergroup tensions.
NCBI teams meet regularly and lead prejudice reduction programs for organizations in their communities, and they intervene with conflict resolution
Conflict resolution
Conflict resolution is conceptualized as the methods and processes involved in facilitating the peaceful ending of some social conflict. Often, committed group members attempt to resolve group conflicts by actively communicating information about their conflicting motives or ideologies to the rest...
skills when intergroup conflicts arise. They may also offer programs that help organizations to build inclusive environments. NCBI Chapters provide an opportunity for community people from all different ages and backgrounds to get to know one another, to build enough trust to bridge group isolation. An NCBI Chapter can offer a model for the rest of the community, showing how human beings can cooperate across group divisions.
NCBI has conducted diversity programs on hundreds of college campuses. There are active Campus Affiliates at 65 colleges and universities in the United States and Canada. An NCBI Campus Affiliate consists of a representative cross-section of students, faculty, and administrators, trained by NCBI, to provide a pro-active response to discrimination and inter-group conflict on campus. The NCBI-trained team offers year-long leadership workshops that create a more inclusive campus environment. Participants in the team-led workshops acquire skills for shifting prejudicial attitudes and learn how to become more effective allies for one another.
A college or university becomes an NCBI Campus Affiliate by paying a lead trainer from NCBI headquarters to lead a three-day Train-the-Trainer Seminar. In this training, campus participants learn how to lead the eight-hour Prejudice Reduction Workshop and the NCBI Controversial Issue Process. Following the Train-the-Trainer Seminar, NCBI, in consultation with the sponsoring institution, selects a Campus Affiliate Director. The Affiliate Director leads the campus team and serves as the liaison with the NCBI National Office. The NCBI Campus Program Director, an experienced campus consultant, offers monthly telephone support and supervision to the Affiliate Director. Members of the campus team also receive ongoing training and support through monthly campus meetings as well as through NCBI's Annual National Campus Conference, where Campus Affiliates share resources and information on best practice
Best practice
A best practice is a method or technique that has consistently shown results superior to those achieved with other means, and that is used as a benchmark...
s.
Chapters contribute 10% of income generated from fee-for-service
Fee-for-service
Fee-for-service is a payment model where services are unbundled and paid for separately. In health care, it gives an incentive for physicians to provide more treatments because payment is dependent on the quantity of care, rather than quality of care...
work back to NCBI headquarters. No chapters have paid full-time
Full time
Full-time employment is employment in which the employee works the full number of hours defined as such by his/her employer. Full-time employment often comes with benefits that are not typically offered to part-time, temporary, or flexible workers, such as annual leave, sickleave, and health...
staff and are generally run from a combination of volunteers and paid consultants who conduct trainings and related programs in their local community
Local community
A local community is a group of interacting people sharing an environment. In human communities, intent, belief, resources, preferences, needs, risks, and a number of other conditions may be present and common, affecting the identity of the participants and their degree of cohesiveness.- Overview...
.
About the Training
The day-long NCBI Prejudice Reduction Workshop has several objectives. Participants are asked to disclose information identity groups to which they belong so that they can celebrate their similarities and differences, recognize the misinformation they learned about various groups, identify and heal from internalized oppression, the discrimination members of an oppressed group target at themselves and each other, claim pride in group identity, understand the personal impact of discrimination through the telling of stories, and learn hands-on tools for dealing effectively with bigoted comments and behavior.The NCBI workshop is experiential in order to move people to new understandings about oppression and prejudice because of its focus on personal stories. All NCBI programming is always co-led or co-facilitated to demonstrated how people can support each other's leadership and be effective allies to one another across group lines. For these reasons, trainer teams typically cross groups lines of sex, race, age, sexual orientation
Sexual orientation
Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to the opposite sex, the same sex, both, or neither, and the genders that accompany them. By the convention of organized researchers, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality,...
or several of these.
As in any other workshop the facilitators take the time to review some ground rules as well as give an overview of the day. The first part of the workshop is designed to create some safety among the attendees by offering them a chance to see the things that they hold in common with each other. From this exercise, participants have a chance to share their multiple identities with another participant.
From this base, the model then moves to exposing stereotypes we all hold of each other. After processing that information, participants then look at that ways in which they have internalized these stereotypes of the groups to which they belong.
Following these exercises, participants have the opportunity to participate in caucuses choosing one of their identities to focus on. The caucus reports allow participants to share things they never want to hear about their group again as well as things that they want participants to know about their group and things they never want to hear about their group.
The next section, Speak Outs, a few people are asked to share a story of a time when they experienced painful discrimination or mistreatment.
The workshop ends with strategies and intervention skills to help participants learn to interrupt prejudicial remarks, slurs or jokes. During a role-play exercise, participants learn that to effectively mitigate prejudice they must be in a place to listen to the person who made the comment, to engage that person in dialogue, and to allow this person to share their perspective. Participants come to understand that only through listening and engaging people in further dialogue, can they help others move to a new understanding of oppression.
Reception
After an independent evaluation of dozens of college diversity programs, the U.S. Department of EducationUnited States Department of Education
The United States Department of Education, also referred to as ED or the ED for Education Department, is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government...
recognized NCBI's campus work as a "promising practice," a designation of excellence given to only a handful of programs in the United States.
The national news media has reported on the effectiveness of NCBI programs. The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
published a front page story on the significance of NCBI's work with young people. ABC World News
World News with Charles Gibson
ABC World News is the flagship daily evening program of ABC News, the news division of the American Broadcasting Company television network in the United States. Currently, the weekday editions are anchored by Diane Sawyer and the weekend editions are anchored by David Muir. The program has been...
featured NCBI as a "program that works." On the anniversary of the Los Angeles riots, The Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
published a feature story on NCBI in its Sunday Magazine, citing NCBI's work in Los Angeles as some of the most important anti-racism
Anti-racism
Anti-racism includes beliefs, actions, movements, and policies adopted or developed to oppose racism. In general, anti-racism is intended to promote an egalitarian society in which people do not face discrimination on the basis of their race, however defined...
work being done in the city. Weekly, the newsletter of the National League of Cities
National League of Cities
The National League of Cities is an American advocacy organization representing 19,000 cities, towns, and villages, and encompassing 49 state municipal leagues....
, in a special supplement, urged local elected officials to enlist the assistance of NCBI in creating proactive solutions to racial tensions. Stories on the success of NCBI's work have also appeared in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
, The Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
, The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...
, and on National Public Radio.
Critics of Re-Evaluation Counseling have tried to associate NCBI with critiques of Re-evaluation Counseling. The National Coalition Building Institute is formally independent of Re-Evaluation Counseling but is linked through Cherie R. Brown, its Founder-Executive Director, who is also a member of RC and active in the Re-evaluation Counseling affiliate organization United to End Racism. Brown has acknowledged that she has learned a great deal about anti-oppression work from Re-evaluation Counseling.