«The future is now»: An experience of future dialogue in a community mediation intervention

This paper aims to present an innovative intervention of community mediation in the context of council housing. The described experience, as organized by an Italian voluntary organization, included the use of a dialogical approach known as Future Dialogue. This method has been shown to be useful when coping with high conflict situations within families that live together in a council housing building. Dialogicity, respect for others, and the participation of service users in the construction and development of their assistance path, facilitated by the Future Dialogue method, allowed for the positive mediation of the conflicts between the inhabitants. Furthermore, through this dialogical method, it was possible to support the development of preventive action and foster a sense of cooperation and good neighbourliness. In this paper, the efficacy of Future Dialogue, as described by the methodological steps, is explained. Finally, the author highlights several points of contact between the Future Dialogue method and Relational Social Work.