National Center for Cultural Healing Tool Series Cultural Healing: Change can stress and disrupt the function of an individual, family, or group. Work places change to respond to: changes in the roles of women and minority groups, rapid changes in technology--and mergers and downsizing, economic and environmental pressures and social change, on-going shifts from industry to information and service and from rural to urban life, and continuing challenges to balance work and family life.

Overview: The meaning of the word "heal" has roots in the words "make whole"-and often involves a system with many parts. It can involve a vision of optimal function and an awareness of conditions that can disrupt or support it. Models to restore wholeness include symptom-relief, crisis intervention, learning or skill building, and prevention. Culture offers people (and groups or organizations) a design for life (and to work, learn, and be healthy)--"a system of informal rules about how people should behave most of the time." People, and groups, have different "mental maps" that are shaped by their unique experiences. How Cultural Healing Works: It can reveal how to repair and renew "mental maps" to support "best practice" and results. The Payoff: Can continually align goals, experiences, beliefs, and other cultural influences to reduce risk of disruption--or to renew systems stressed by change. How to Make It Happen: Facilitator joins with community, organization, group, or cultural representatives to identify and develop a process to assess, plan, and implement cultural change, such as cultural audit, surveys and skill building, dialog and strategic planning, workforce development, CircleWorks. Brandt, M.J.C., (1997), CircleWorks, unpublished. Hodgkinson, H.L., (June 1992), A Demographic Look at Tomorrow, Institute for Educational Leadership. Ray, M., & Rinzler, A., (1993), The New Paradigm in Business: Emerging Strategies for Leadership and Organizational Change, LA, CA: Jeremy Tacher, Inc Rosen, R.H., & Berger, L. (1992) The Healthy Company: Eight Strategies, NY: Tilden Publishing. Senge, P.M. et al (1994), The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organization, New York, NY: Doubleday. Tosti, D., et al "Organizational Alignment: How it Works and Why it Matters," In Training, April 1994, pp. 58-64. Weisbord M.R., (1992), Discovering Common Ground: How Future Search Conferences Bring People Together to Achieve, San Francisco, CA: Berrett Koehler Publishers.