Community engagement
echo update
echo, our framework to assess and develop public sector openness to community influence is now being used within Local Strategic Partnerships, thematic sub-groups and public sector agencies.
It is the first framework that is easy to get .. it is a gentle challenge .. the first framework I have seen which is about cultural change
Developed in the West Midlands with support from the National Empowerment Parntership, Community Development Exchange, Improvement & Efficiency West Midlands (L2D programme), Wolverhampton Partnership and the Black Country Take Part Pathfinder we have now started running the first echo facilitator training courses. As with Voice, these are commissioned courses which may be opened up to wider audiences and which target people who are in aposition to facilitate discussions in their organisations
echo promises to have a wide application and has already been used to:
- help a Partnership Board to consider how genuinely open they are to community influence
- help inform proposals for improving the quality of community engagement across a locality
- increase awareness and understanding amongst key decision makers and influencers of the need to be open to influence and of what being open to influence looks like
- prioritise actions to move community engagement forward across a Partnership
- enhance understanding of engagement & empowerment.
- contribute to an LAA NI4 Delivery Plan
If you have not yet come across echo, but this raises your interest, you can find out more in our resources section and/or join us on our network.
Voice update
Hugely useful, quite enlightening, the breadth and depth is interesting. It doesn’t require significant adaptation to be used in a variety of circumstances.
Voice, our framework on assessing and developing community influence, is now being widely used by Community Groups, Networks, Organisations and Forums. Groups that have worked with it include: Police Independent Advisory Groups, Community Centre Management Committees, Community Anchors, Voluntary Sector Organisations, Forums and a Third Sector Partnership.
We have had an increased uptake of our 2-day Voice Facilitator Training Course, which is specifically designed for people who already work with groups and have good facilitation skills. In 2010 we have delivered this training in London, Wiltshire, & Birmingham and are due to deliver more in Redcar & Cleveland, Wolverhampton & Birmingham again. These are all commissioned course which potentially have places available for people from different organisations. Watch this space or join our network for updates.
If you haven’t come across Voice yet but like the sound of it so far, then check out our resources section to download a copy of our leaflet and handy guide, or read more about community influence under our areas of work.
Voice is of particular relevance for workers assigned/attached to particular community groups, networks, organisations, and workers working with and supporting community groups, networks and organisations.
Making the business case for community engagement
We are interested in debating this – click on the title of this post if you would like to proceed to a message board where you can comment and contribute.
This might be about
- explicit messages on how community engagement can help agencies to meet targets, in the light of statistics like the 85.7% of Local Authorities who think that the economic slowdown will make it more difficult to achieve Local Area Agreement targets (Survey of the Impact of the Economic Slowdown on Local Authorities 2008)
- ideas for, and experience of, measuring ROI (Return on Investment) where the investment is community engagement
or something else …
What is community engagement all about?
We have been trying to find straight forward ways of explaining community engagement and the motivations for considering it… Imagine a street of houses – you want to ask 16 householders a question – if you just go around the houses and ask them you will get up to 16 different replies. 
These replies will be largely concerned with that particular household – they won’t necessarily consider anyone else – and if they do, that view will likely be a perception – a guess about the concerns or issues facing others.
Alternatively – if you work with these 16 householders as a group – not only do they discuss and negotiate to reach a consensus on their collective priorities but it is likely that their discussion and their perception of what is possible will be much more sophisticated – and coherent. If you are working with them they should also get a realistic picture of the constraints that you are working within.
Similarly – just one person making connections with groups and communities in this way doesn’t cut it – their manager – and others – need to understand what they are doing, the motivations for doing it and what the benefits are to the organisation – micro and macro.