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Dave Joseph, MSW, is Vice-President, Program of the Public Conversations Project and has worked there since 2005. An experienced trainer, consultant, mediator and dialogue practitioner, he has worked with a broad cross-section of non-profits. As a young adult, Dave served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Niger, an event that he describes as a life changing experience that taught him invaluable lessons about communication and culture. “While living with the Hausa people, I learned that every experience that we have is an intercultural experience whether we realize it or not. I came to see that if people could slow down and ask questions, rather than making assumptions, that this could lead to more effective communication and greater understanding."
After returning from Africa, Dave attended social work school and went on to become a family therapist. For 25 years, he directed mental-health and addictions treatment services at several community mental health centers in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. As a result of years of observing the damage that divorce, particularly when litigated, had on the children of his adult clients, he became trained as a mediator in 1995. He sought divorce mediation as a way of helping parents "keep their eyes on the prize," namely the needs and best interests of their children, rather than their own.
In 1996 he began his involvement with the Public Conversations Project, co-facilitating conversations between pro-life and pro-choice individuals. PCP's focus is on building and deepening trust between people with conflicting identities, worldviews and/or core values. Since coming on staff in 2005, his work has addressed such issues as Hutu-Tutsi reconciliation; Israel-Palestine; religious and ethnic differences in Nigeria, as well as differences related to politics, class and race. Currently he is attempting to deepen his work promoting interfaith reconciliation, as well as women's empowerment, in Nigeria. He has been delighted to work with Mediators Beyond Borders since 2007, as part of the Liberian Initiative. He is deeply committed to MBB's values of respect, integrity and awareness of how we must be and embody what we profess. |
Dave Joseph
