Members of the Vancouver, Washington community were invited to attend a forum at the Vancouver Community Library on April 25, 2018. The discussion focused on the issue of immigration as framed in the National Issues Forums Institute (NIFI) issue guide titled Coming to America: Who Should We Welcome, What Should We Do? The forum was also being held as part of the National Week of Conversation.

An article (and audio) about the forum was posted by the Public News Service, titled On Hot Button Issue, Forum Promotes Civil Conversations: 

...As branch manager of the library, Jackie Spurlock has overseen discussions like this. Along with healing the divide, she said, people are can learn from each other's points of view.

"The idea is not to get people to change their minds," she said. "It is to help everyone have a broader, maybe a more nuanced, view of the issues that matter in our community."

Past library forum topics include criminal justice and affordable housing. Spurlock said attendees enjoy that there isn't a foregone conclusion about these issues at the meetings, which helps them listen and engage with their neighbors more meaningfully...

Click here to read the article.