How did it all start?
The history behind dawn:
1990-2013
As a student, I wanted to become a clinical pschologist, supporting people's mental healing and development as they went through life's challenges. But I lacked the math skills required for a Psychology degree, choosing Religious Studies instead.
There I discovered parallels with my earlier aspirations: the field of faith and meaning allows for human healing and development in different ways. The most meaningful way seemed to be pastoral care in hospitals. But again I faced reality: at 22, what life experience would I be able to offer people dealing with illness, trauma, and death? So I became a teacher.
In education, my twin main strengths were supporting students' and colleagues' well-being, and facilitating debate. The former led, among other things, to the side role of well-being counsellor. The latter was a newly discovered set of debate facilitation skills, which I began to hone over the coming years.
2013-2015
In 2015, at Erasmushogeschool Brussel I founded Democratic Dialogue, a debate facilitation team and method. It offered answers to the situation facing many schools: contentious topics made reasonable debate impossible, often leading to either conflict or taboo.
The Democratic Dialogue team was multidisciplinary and diverse, and unafraid to look hard at its own blind spots and areas of growth. A collective professional friendship took shape that has remained fruitful over the years.
Gradually the Democratic Dialogue method became more coherent, and more widely applicable outside of schools. Each team member based their own focus on professional experience and academic background.
Personally I focused in
non-violent communication and conversational techniques. I also developed a training
programme for dialogue facilitators.
2015-2023
Whilst Democratic Dialogue developed as a side job, I simultaneously pursued a career in training management. Positions as Head of Training and Learning & Development Manager enabled me to grow in both process and people management, while also gradually specializing in leadership development training.
In this specific area, personal coaching, team coaching, and mentoring are paramount to leaders' success. My growing expertise in organizing these for managers, enhancing their professional development, made me realize that my strongest skills were on the purely human side of L&D. Increasingly I felt that my calling lay outside of the corporate world.
I discovered the Grief Counselling postgraduate course and started preparing for a new professional shift, reaching back to my earliest professional dreams.
2024-
The professional context of humanitarian work with the Red Cross fully reflects who I am. I can be of service to others in a radically inclusive and supportive environment. At the same time, training as a Grief Counsellor has boosted my desire to start my own practice. And dialogue is central to it.
Over the years I had already experienced that conscious engagement with dialogue effectively improves relationships with others. Now it has dawned on me, that this includes the relationship with oneself. Whether collectively, interpersonally, or intrapersonally: dialogue always works.
Dialogue is a journey into new territory. Whether what troubles people is conflictual interaction or existential pain, dialogue opens a way forward, ending the stalemate, inspiring people to new and hopeful perspectives.
My professional aspirations have thus come full circle.
The dawn conflict resolution method can help people:
... have healthier conversations.
Is it difficult to discuss certain topics?
Are you avoiding them for fear of turbulence?
Your options are not just taboo or conflict: constructive dialogue is possible.
... discover and co-create new solutions.
Organizations, teams, families may get stuck in unproductive politeness, trying to avoid disturbing discussions.
Dawn can help move beyond both.
When we start asking questions,
new answers and pathways are created.
... reconnect
with each other.
Opinions are not static-they evolve as we speak. This process brings us closer together, whether we agree or disagree.
Because communication is the stuff that relationships are made of.
This is achieved by addressing conflict
on three levels:
1. Complicated interactions are understood in their broader context.
2. The social dynamics
at play are made explicit.
3. A set of 30 conversational techniques create a space of
- reason
- inquiry
- inclusion