To involve the Taos Associates more closely with the Institute and to advance our non-profit mission, we created a small granting program for the development of various projects that are initiated and carried out by Taos Associates. All projects approved for funding are designed to extend social constructionist ideas and practice into the world. They are in alignment with the Taos Institute's organizational mission and purpose and contribute to the work of the Taos Institute in meaningful ways. We are pleased to be able to support these innovative and exciting projects.

Below are brief descriptions of the projects which have been funded through the TAG program.

2011 TAG Awards:

Ada Jo Mann, Anne Radford, Tony Silbert - Support the creation of a video, e-journal for Innovations in Appreciative Inquiry: A Special Video Issue Of AI Practitioner.

The purpose of this project is to produce a special issue of AI Practitioner to be launched at the 2012 Worldwide Appreciative Inquiry conference in Belgium, April 25-28, 2012. The topic of this special issue will be Innovations in AI around the Globe. This issue of the AI Practitioner will be an innovation in itself by publishing it in a downloadable format or on a USB stick using the medium of short video clips that will showcase outstanding examples of AI innovation from around the world. The focus of the examples will be in the area of generative and co-creative innovation. What are some of the breakthrough, next generation stories of AI innovation that are breathing life into the practice of AI around the globe. Where is AI heading in the 21st century? By taking this innovative approach, the examples can be used in training sessions, workshops and presentations around the world.

This special issue will be produced through a partnership with AI Practitioner, an editorial team from Innovation Partners International and the Taos Institute as partial funder and future distributor. The first 150 conference registrants at the International Appreciative Inquiry conference in Belgium, April 2012, will get this e-journal on a stick as part of their conference participation. 

Emerson F. Rasera – The writing and publication of a new book - Constructionist perspectives on group work: practices and reflections.

This project aims to promote the development of "group work" based on a social constructionist sensibility through the publication of a book with varied theoretical and practical contributions. The book will be written by different Brazilian authors, covering diverse topics such as group work in different contexts, community work, institutional work, training and research. Its main audience is professionals and researchers interested in group work and social constructionist ideas. It will be submitted to the Taos Institute Press for analysis and publication.  This project has the contributions of four Taos Associates (Emerson Rasera, Carla Guanaes, Celiane Camargo-Borges and Marilene Grandesso) and members of two important institutions in Brazil in the training of constructionist oriented therapists and the diffusion of social constructionist ideas - FAMILIAE and NOOS Institute (Carlos Eduardo Zuma, Eloisa Vidal Rosas and others).

The purpose of this proposal is to request co-sponsorship and funding under the Taos Institute TAG Program for the Goldenfleece International Conference on Story and Business in the United States. This conference will promote social constructionist principles through the use of story.

Shayamal Saha - The development of tools for the promotion of self-help among farmers adapting to climate change in Bangladesh, using social constructionist and appreciative inquiry resources.

The project will integrate the principles of Social/Relational Construction and the 4-D cycle of AI which offers us the potential and possibility to promote self-help means towards climate change adaptation in agriculture among these people.
The main purposes of this project are to:
• Pilot an AI cycle in a rural ( agri-livelihood based) community of Bangladesh in order to promote local innovations and actions affecting climate change adaptation in agriculture;
• Develop a contextualized AI facilitation tools (useful for grassroots change workers) in order to facilitate farmers’ community in order to promote self-help with regard to climate change adaptation in their agriculture.

To promote these ideas, we need to build a solid, cutting-edge, modern website in tune with the present world. This implies a website which is built so that it can be easily updated and is connected with the digital social space through social media (i.e. Twitter and Facebook). The overall objective and mission of Relational Buddhism is to present and inspire scientists, healthcare professionals and the general public with a comprehensive roadmap to deal with existential suffering of everyday life by a relational outlook of life and modus vivendi in line with what the Buddha had taught. The website’s objective is to inform, link and inspire scientists, healthcare professionals and the general public, sustained and fed by the social media in order to build a virtual community and establish a strong online presence. 

Relational Buddhism website: http://relationalbuddhism.org

2010 TAG Awards:

Saliha Bava - Visual Resource Project 

The purpose of this Visual Resources Project is to create an interactive databank of visual and interactive resources for training/learning about social construction which will also serve as an experiential virtual space for social construction of knowledge. The Institute’s sophisticated website provides an excellent backend design which makes this a cost-effective project while enriching the interactive experience of its web-users.

Objective
· To design an interactive database of visual resources for training about social construction ideas
· To construct the approved database.
· To research resources those promote and illustrate social construction concepts/practices.
· To make the virtual space a user-friendly space where practitioners can share their training tools.
· To create the virtual space as an illustration of Social Construction practice.

Visit: http://www.taosinstitute.net/visual-resources

Anne Morrison - Relational Learning Project

The purpose of the Relational Learning Project is to create a new section on the Taos Institute website which will feature projects from around the world that highlight the theory and practice of Relational Learning.  The goal of this project is to expand the Taos community by making direct connections between relational learning and an existing undergraduate Peer Mentoring Project. The Peer Mentoring project at Kent State University is the first project to be featured on this site. Other projects being undertaken by the Taos community will be featured as well. By exemplifying the numerous benefits that social construction and relational learning have on students who actively engage in their education and co-construct meaning, we will be inviting educators to consider how these principles can be used in not only learning, but teaching and research, as well. In this project, we will demonstrate how social construction can be used as a teaching/learning tool, as well as a foundation for research methodology.

Visit: www.taosinstitute.net/relational-learning-in-education

Tom Strong - Experiencing and responding to the DSM-IV and evidence-based practice: Accounts and creative responses from social constructionist therapists

The purpose of this project is to survey the experiences of social constructionist therapists working with clients across different practice contexts. Qualitative analyses from the survey primarily answers the following related questions: 1) what are the experiences of constructionist therapists when using the DSM-IV and evidence based practice is expected? and 2) how have constructionist therapists resisted or creatively adapted to expected use of DSM-IV and evidence based practice? A website of related resources for constructionist therapists has been developed. This study was motivated by practitioners' concerns about how their efforts to help clients had become increasingly constrained by institutional and fee-payer expectations that client problems were given DSM diagnoses. What can be constraining about this expectation relates to how a DSM discourse of practice can be at odds with the ways clients' concerns are formulated in other helping discourses. As examples, a narrative therapist or a systemic counsellor would view client problems in much different discourses of practice. However, to diagnose client concerns in DSM terms requires a different kind of dialogue with clients than would occur in narrative or systemic dialogues. Beyond such constraints is an increasing expectation that, notonly must practitioners diagnose client problems using DSM language and ways of conversing, they also should use evidence-supported interventions to address clients' diagnosed conditions. How varied professional helpers experience the influence of the DSM on their ways of being helpful is a key feature of this study. Similarly, how they have adapted their ways of practice to continue with alternative models of practice is also a focus of this study. Ultimately, our aim is to summarize participants' experiences and resourceful ways of working with DSM when it is anexpected feature in helping clients.

Visit: http://www.ucalgary.ca/ddsm/

Christine Dennstedt - Insider Knowledges - Inspiring Resistance and Finding Freedom from Disordered Eating and Substance Misuse

This project is to create a website will that will document, circulate and archive the ‘insider knowledges’ of person’s struggling with substance misuse and disordered eating practices. The intent of the site is to create a space to share insider's experiences about the ways that the problems of disordered eating practices and substance misuse work in their lives, and their ideas regarding ways to find freedom from these problems and how to best address these problems in therapy. This project will allow for persons' ‘insider’ knowledges to be privileged for finding freedom from problems rather than professionals generating ideas as to how to best help persons with these problems. The website will be grounded in social constructionist ideas and practices.

Visit: http://www.insiderknowledges.com/ 

Chris Blantern - Making Networks Happen

Making Networks Happen is a participatory Action Learning/Research project aimed at helping members (members are at the organisational level), particularly in the fields of both public and commercial service delivery, to work through complex "networking" issues. This approach enables participants to work on and learn from action undertaken on real, current organisational challenges. The project will act as a learning community for accumulating resources, generating productive action and sharing learning and co-creating good practice and knowledge related to networking. The objectives of this project are to:

• Enable those concerned with organising across boundaries, between agencies, and with multiple partners to improve service outcomes and to support people in working better together.
• Generate productive action, shared learning, tools and methodologies and the co-creation of good practice and knowledge.
• Record, publish and disseminate findings (papers, articles, DVDs, dedicated website).
• Create a growing and accessible resource (a network) for useful help, working knowledge, shared enquiry and supportive relationships – for ‘making networks happen’.

Visit: www.stringbag.net

Kathy Clark - New Ways of Thinking About Medicine, Law and Social Justice - soon to be a Taos Publication

The purpose of this project is to write a book which introduces new approaches, ways of thinking and practices to law and medicine and those associated with these professions, whether they are consultants, coaches, administrators, risk managers, or others. Health care is the focus of government and citizenry discussion and debate at the present time. Issues being debated include tort reform and “defensive medicine” (physicians practicing in ways that protect them from being sued but don’t necessarily help their patients), pitting physicians against attorneys in a culture of blame and finger-pointing. The analysis in this book describes new ways of thinking and alternatives to some areas of health care, such as medical malpractice litigation, disclosure, apology, healing, and reporting, among other issues. In addition to non-traditional approaches to these topics, the book also addresses the individualistic cultures of both law and medicine and opportunities to rethink and broaden those cultures and the language associated with them to one more collaborative and relational. If a collaborative process that supports resolution, transparency, and healing is introduced at the outset, giving trust and cooperation a chance to take hold, the litigation that follows will very likely be more collaborative and much less adversarial.

Laura Fruggeri - The Conference on the Social Relevance of Psychological Research

Funds were granted to support a conference on this topic in Italy, April 2011 that was a productive confrontation among Italian scholars working on psychology and social issues.. The conference participants had the opportunity to reflect and discuss with the presenters about the influence that the research has in constructing prejudice, stereotypes, beliefs, and opinions, and also the influence that prejudices, ideas, beliefs and stereotypes shared within the community, and by the researchers as part of it, have on the planning and the realization of research projects.