The West Virginia Center for Civic Life engages in a broad spectrum of training and collaborative work with West Virginia citizens, all aimed at increasing the public's capacity to work together on common problems through public discussion. This involves educational outreach, direct training seminars, and extensive partnering with individuals and organizations in order to provide opportunities for our residents to come together to deliberate on issues that are vital to their communities.

The West Virginia Center for Civic Life envisions a future when West Virginia communities will resolve conflicts through deliberative discussion and a shared response to community issues and concerns.

The WVCCL believes that our democracy is strengthened when communities, individuals, and organizations use public discourse and public forums for choosing solutions to public issues, exploring the benefits and consequences of what they propose.

What is a Deliberative Forum?

It's gathering of citizens to discuss and consider options for important public issues.

A deliberative forum gives citizens the opportunity to consider a variety of perspectives on important issues that face them.  With the help of a neutral moderator, participants talk together, explore options, weigh each other's views, and consider costs and trade-offs.  In forums, participants work to discover common concerns, areas of disagreement, and shared directions for community action.

About Deliberative Democracy

There is a growing sense in the public that we have to take more responsibility for what is happening around us, that citizens have to do something because nothing will really change until we do.

Our most serious problems seem to require a public response.  The problems are embedded in the moral, economic, and social fabric of our society.  If we believe we have to make choices together in order to act together, the involvement of a wide array of citizens in public deliberation is a necessity.

In order to act together , people have to choose together

In order to choose together, they have to know together

In order to know together, they have to think together

In order to think together, they have to talk together

In order to talk together about choices over which they differ in convictions, they have to engage one another and weigh carefully various choices about purpose and direction

Links To

Public Deliberation's National Network