Bruce Dienes, Community Consultant

08/16/2025

Building happy communities!
https://www.saltscapes.com/roots-folks/3753-blueprint-for-belonging-the-happy-community-project.html

03/08/2025

International Women's Day.
https://whiteribbon.org.au/resources/
Will you take the White Ribbon pledge?
"I will stand up, speak out and act to prevent men’s violence against women"

09/27/2024

Happy to be sponsoring Sechile Sedare at the Deep Roots Folk Festival 2024! https://deeprootsmusic.ca/2024/06/sechile-sedare/

09/04/2024

I just finished the "Trauma-Informed Certificate for Coaches" from the Centre for Healing. They now make this available free to anyone who wants to deepen their awareness of trauma and how to embed that awareness in their practice.
There are eight modules to go through, and it gives a good overview of the issues. They integrate insights from a variety of perspectives and the end result is a good picture of the issues that you can take and fit into your own understanding.
https://www.thecentreforhealing.com/trauma-informed-certificate-for-coaches

06/14/2024

Traveling to the American Men's Studies Association conference to present a 90 min workshop on "A Motivational Model to Shift the Culture of Gendered Violence."

05/16/2024

I'll be on a panel for a webinar this Thursday the 16th focused on Gender Justice in Canadian Trades and Construction Sectors. It is free to attend. Should be interesting! It is 2pm ADT 1pm EDT and 10am PDT! We are on now...

Some of the issues:

"Physical work, isolation, and a hyper-masculine culture that stigmatizes help-seeking has created the perfect storm for this sector to have among the highest rates of drug-related deaths and su***de. This needs to change."

"What steps can we take to progress gender justice and prevent violence in Canada’s trades and construction sector? How can we create safe, healthy workplaces where our current and future workforce thrives?"

Demand for skilled trades and construction workers in Canada is soaring. However, these sectors face challenges related to employee mental health, and struggle to recruit from underrepresented groups. What does gender have to do with this? Men comprise the majority of the workforce in these sectors,...

04/13/2024

Share your insight with us!
One of my passions is working to create safer communities. In my roles teaching and practicing community psychology, I often come across problematic issues that have not yet reached the full awareness of the communities that are impacted by them. Gambling harm is one of these. The gambling industry (including our government) would like us to blame this on “problem gamblers” rather than acknowledging that they are creating “gambling problems” for all of us at all levels of our community, as the graphic here describes.

We are asking you, particularly anyone whose work intersects with the impacts of gambling (first responders, teachers, sports coaches, therapists, community policing, counselors, business professionals, health practitioners, etc.) to share your insights and experiences with the repercussions of gambling as we compile stories to include in a document to share with leaders and influencers across the province, in hope that changes will be made to alleviate the harms.

Please visit the GRINS website and let your voice be heard (anonymously if you prefer).

https://gamblingriskinformednovascotia.ca/survey-on-impacts-of-gambling-on-nova-scotia-communities

Bruce Dienes, Chair, GRINS.

* Thanks to Eric Hutt for the graphic!

10/24/2023

Want to know how to effectively influence people to say "Yes!"? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFdCzN7RYbw
Having a grasp on basic aspects of psychology can make you a motre effective communicator... The trick is to use these ethically, not manipulatively. Do you have ideas about how to make this difference?

http://www.influenceatwork.com This animated video describes the six universal Principles of Persuasion that have been scientifically proven to make you most...

12/28/2022

Holidays can be a challenging time for some. Here's a useful resource to help keep grounded:

The holidays are often the time of year where family comes together. Distant and close relatives show up, and bring forth family memories; not all of which are positive. There are expectations towa…

10/23/2022

Here is an intruiging podcast series that examines "A Century of Men in Feminism" and includes an analysis of how men can redefine masculinity in ways that are more conducive to healthy life, relationships and work. https://www.nextgenmen.ca/blog/men-feminism-history
If you are looking for support in transforming the culture of masculinity in your workplace or organization, get in touch with me and we'll talk!

It is fascinating that ideas of male liberation were being discussed more than a hundred years exactly before Next Gen Men began. It encouraged me to dig deeper from the history that I already knew about male movements.