How to engage with your community
Community engagement, also known as community action plans, is about putting communities at the heart of their own local services. When communities help plan and deliver services, it can help achieve important things. These include:
- building community and social skills
- community resilience
- preventing problems from happening
- cross-community collaboration and partnerships that provide added value to local people
- creating wealth and opportunities
- improving the wellbeing of people who join the community activities
How this benefits your community
Local and national experience and evidence demonstrate the benefits to communities and organisations when they communicate effectively. These include:
- stronger democratic legitimacy of government and the civic life of the community
- more efficient and effective services that better reflect the needs of service users, and have higher levels of customer satisfaction
- reduced inequalities
- opportunities for people to be involved in council matters such as housing and planning
- safer and stronger communities, with a more attractive built environment that meets people’s needs
- greater local ownership of council services
- better understanding of how and why local services need to change and develop
- improved local reputation
- an increase in community engagement, cohesion and ownership
- the ability for residents to help themselves and each other, and a sense of place and belonging
We have suggested 5 key aims to ensure that you can engage with your community in a consistent way:
1. put community involvement at the centre of everything you do
2. strive for a broad representation of your residents
3. be honest, open and transparent with your community ensuring there is easy access to clear and relevant information
4. make sure that the views, needs, expectations and outcomes of engagement activities are used to inform the decision-making processes
5. listen to your community and give feedback to participants about outcomes of engagement activities
Projects for community engagement
Thinking about a project that you want to get off the ground, consider each of the questions below:
- do I have information that all or some of my local community might like to access? Yes, I should inform them
- do I need to know the views of my local community? Yes, I should consult them
-
do I want my community to take action or change their behaviour? Yes, I should empower them
If you have answered yes to more than 1 question you might need to consider more than 1 type of engagement. However, please remember that using 1 engagement method successfully will be more valuable than using 2 ineffectively.
If you have answered no to all of the questions above it is likely that you do not need to carry out any additional engagement activity at this time. Please look through the rest of the toolkit to decide and remember to refer back to these questions at each stage of your project.
Ways to engage
Inform
You can give your community the details they need to make informed decisions and take appropriate action.
Social media and web-based information
Social media and web-based content can be useful in creating an online presence for your information and making it available across various platforms.
Think about:
- what information you would like to give out
- who your audience is and if they will proactively seek out your site/pages
- whether your information is accessible (consider those with visual impairments or those for whom English is not their first language)
- how you will make people aware that this source of information exists
- whether you have a local Facebook page or Parish Council website
Do:
- plan ahead to make sure that you have a professional-looking site/pages
- bear in mind the possible cost and time implications of hosting, maintaining and updating web pages and social media accounts
- keep information concise with clear links to documents and other sites
- use summary documents for lengthy policies
- make sure downloadable documents are in a universally accessible format (PDF)
- make sure response documents/online questionnaires are short and to the point
- let people know what will happen to their information and any potential outcomes of responding
- remember that some people do not have access to the internet
Leaflets, posters and newsletters
Leaflets, posters and newsletters can be useful if you want to keep people informed about a project or service, attract interest or recruit people for projects.
Think about:
- what message you are trying to get across
- who your audience is
- how and where it will be distributed or displayed
- how much will it cost to design, print and distribute
- whether you need to consult on the design (and if so, go to the 'consulting' section of this toolkit)
- alternative formats or language
- how you will evaluate the impact or success of your campaign
Information stalls
An information stall at a local event can provide information in a way that allows people to give their views and ask questions.
Think about:
- what information you would like to give out
- who your audience is
- whether you need people with specialist knowledge to be there
- how you will advertise the event (if you need to)
- what staging and/or props you will need
- how you will measure results
Do:
- plan ahead to make sure that you have all the equipment you need to make the stall look professional
- allow plenty of time to set up
- have a backup plan if the event is outdoors and the weather is bad, for example, how will you stop leaflets blowing away in high winds?
- have a post-box or comment board to allow people to make contributions – you will need to commit to follow up on these after the event
- ensure you get back to people if you commit to do research/provide information to someone
News releases
Issuing news releases to your community can be a great way to let your people know about a project you are launching or where there is likely to be a large amount of interest or potential controversy.
Think about:
- what message you are trying to get across
- who your audience is
- what publications and social media you need to target
- whether there could be any negative response from your press release
Consult
Ask people of different ages and backgrounds within the community what they think, so that decision-makers can make well-rounded and informed choices.
Questionnaires and surveys
Surveys can be an effective way of gathering information about people’s experiences and views. They can be carried out by an interviewer or left to the respondent to complete on their own, but they are unlikely to provide in-depth information.
Think about:
- what you want to find out
- what you will do with the results
- who you want to survey
- how you will gather responses (face-to-face, telephone, postal, via existing groups, online)
- if you need a statistically significant response rate (good practice suggests 10% is the minimum useful response rate)
- what budget you will need
Do:
- allow plenty of time for people to respond - if you are surveying voluntary sector groups, for example, you are expected to allow 12 weeks
- consider the look and layout of your survey, as this can encourage or discourage responses
- think about using an online survey designer to create and distibute your survey
Remember, some population groups are more likely to respond to postal or web-based surveys than others. This could affect your results.
Focus Groups
Focus groups are small discussion groups of approximately 8 to 15 people and are usually led by a trained facilitator. They can help you get in-depth responses to an issue, evaluate concepts and explore new ideas.
Think about:
- how you will recruit participants
- what you want to achieve from the group
- how you will select participants e.g. do you want a random sample or community members?
- what the focus group will involve
- where the group will be held
- how to make the focus group accessible to everyone invited
- what budget you will need
Do:
- allow plenty of time to work with the facilitator to develop an agenda, script and materials
- give people plenty of time to decide if they want to be involved
- make sure that the results are fed back to the participants
- ask participants to complete a simple evaluation sheet at the end of the discussions to find out how the process was viewed
Events
Events can be valuable for gaining and sharing information and good practice, networking and building interest in your engagement work.
Think about:
- what you want to get from the event
- involving a few of the intended participants in planning it, if it’s a community event
- how to make the event accessible to everyone invited
- what budget you will need
- the safety and well-being of those people attending and also working at the event
Our Event Safety Advisory Group (SAG) can provide support with risk assessments and other safety concerns for events.
Do:
- plan well in advance, allowing at least 4 months for a large scale event
- book the venue, refreshments, facilitators and/or speakers in good time before the event
- send out a programme
- make sure that you have emergency plans in place in case they are needed
- ask attendees to complete a simple evaluation sheet at the end of the event to find out how they viewed it and what they gained
Round table workshops
Round table workshops tend to involve relevant local stakeholders coming together to brainstorm ideas. The stakeholders can be members of the community, for example, service users, elected councillors, parish councils, businesses or service providers.
Workshops can focus on very specific issues or be more general in order to develop strategy or vision. They can also help to build relationships.
They are different to focus groups, which often only involve service users.
Think about:
- who you want to be involved?
- whether you need a facilitator on each table if you have more than one
- how to make the workshop accessible to everyone invited
- what budget you will need
Do:
- present relevant specialist and technical information in a way that is easy to understand
- use a range of exercises that encourage participants from differing backgrounds to analyse what is presented and make decisions
- use flipcharts, rich pictures and spider diagrams to make the discussion engaging
- allow time for each table to report back to the whole group
- make sure that the results are fed back to the participants
- think about how you will capture the information
- book rooms and refreshments early
Written plans, policies and strategies
Getting feedback on draft documents can transform a service or initiative.
Think about:
- what information you want
- who you want to consult
- what consultation method/s you want to use, for example focus groups, workshops, survey, web-based
- what parts of the document people can change
- ways to limit the amount of reading that participants will have to do
- how to let people know about the consultation, for example, by letter for targeted groups
- what budget you will need
Do:
- be clear about which parts of the document can be influenced and why
- allow plenty of time for people to respond set up clear lines of communication
- make sure that the results are fed back to respondents
- if appropriate, allow time to re-write the document after the consultation closes
- recognise that simply posting a document online is not enough to be able to say 'we consulted'
Empower
Community Empowerment
The power of local residents within your community should not be overlooked. There are many ways in which local residents can have a greater effect on the problem or need than you realise.
There is immense power when a group of people with similar interests come together to work towards the same goal.
Think about:
- who you want to be involved
- who the beneficiaries should be of such devolved powers whether to devolve financial decision-making
- what the possible (legal) consequences are of decisions made/monies spent
- can your local District Councillor or Parish Councillor help you
- could your community control a budget
Do:
- look at good practice models – learn from the experiences of others
- manage people’s expectations by making clear the parameters of their decision-making role
- follow up on community activity – what were the benefits of such an approach, the outcomes, is it sustainable?
Projects and Capacity Building
Community projects can strengthen communities by building relationships within a neighbourhood as well as helping to build confidence and develop skills so that residents can take action for themselves.
Think about:
- what you want to achieve – behavioural change or self-help
- the type of project you want to do and why
- who your project will be aimed at and how you will make contact with them?
- whether you will need facilitators for training or capacity building
- what budget you will need
Do:
- make sure that your project is focused and responsive to a particular need
- be clear about the benefits to people of getting involved and manage expectations
- be clear at the outset of the project if it will be short-term or long-term and the costs involved
- set up clear lines of communication
- be flexible and listen to the people involved