Community Engagement Guide...“community engagement” box and get it done, your engagement will likely fail and lead to greater distrust and conflict. If you sincerely see engagement

May 2017 City of Peterborough Community Engagement Guide adapted with permission from City of Peterborough. The original guide was developed in partnership with Tamarack. September 2018

Community Engagement

GUIDE

Document adapted from City of Peterborough and Tamarack by Peterborough Public Health

Community Engagement Guide P a g e | 2

Table of Contents What is Community Engagement? ................................................................................................. 3

Who is the Community? .................................................................................................. 3

Benefits of Community Engagement ........................................................................... 4

Community Engagement Continuum .......................................................................... 5

Principles of Community Engagement ......................................................................... 6

Key Steps to Conducting Effective Community Engagement ......................................................... 7

Plan Your Engagement .................................................................................................... 7

Identify the Purpose .................................................................................................... 8

Use the Why Engage? Worksheet in the Community Engagement Toolkit ....................... 8

Select the Level of Engagement ................................................................................... 8

Community Engagement Continuum .............................................................................. 9

Use the Select the Level of Engagement Worksheet in the Community Engagement Toolkit ............................................................................................................................... 11

Determine Who Your Community Is ............................................................................. 12

Use the Who Should We Engage? Worksheet in the Community Engagement Toolkit .. 13

Select Your Engagement Techniques ............................................................................ 13

Use the Select Engagement Techniques Worksheet in the Community Engagement Toolkit ............................................................................................................................... 13

Develop Key Messages .................................................................................................. 13

Other Considerations .................................................................................................... 14

Use the Engagement Plan Worksheet in the Community Engagement Toolkit .............. 14

Keys to Effective Design ................................................................................................ 15

Implement the Activities ............................................................................................................... 16

Use the Implementation Plan Worksheet in the Community Engagement Toolkit ........ 16

Understanding the Cost of Engagement ....................................................................... 17

Keys to Effective Delivery .............................................................................................. 18

Use the Feedback Loop Worksheet in the Community Engagement Toolkit .................. 19

Keys to Effective Feedback Loops ................................................................................. 19

Evaluate the Outcomes Against your Goals .................................................................. 20

Use the Evaluation Worksheet in the Community Engagement Toolkit ......................... 20

Evaluation Techniques to Measure Success.................................................................. 21

Community Engagement Challenges, Vulnerabilities, and Unintended Outcomes .... 22



What is Community Engagement?

Community Engagement is defined as:

“Community engagement is a process not a program. It is the participation of members of a community in assessing, planning, implementing, and evaluating solutions to problems that affect them.” (Source: A Guide to Community Engagement Frameworks for Action on the Social Determinants of Health and Health Equity, National Collaborating Centre for Determinants of Health, 2013)

Who is the Community?

When we refer to the 'community' we mean anyone who would have influence on, or be affected by, the project, issue or initiative. It is important to always include both content and context experts:

Content Experts are professionals, staff in your organization, service providers, and leaders with formal power who have knowledge, tools, and resources to address the issue.

Context Experts are residents with lived experience, including children and youth. They are the people who experientially know about the issue.

Who the community is exactly will change depending on the context of the issue or initiative, but may include:

Specific groups such as service providers, schools, recreational groups, service groups,

advocacy groups, non-profit agencies, businesses, faith groups

Community leaders

Specific neighbourhood residents

Segments of the population

The general public



Benefits of Community Engagement

Community Engagement (CE) helps Peterborough Public Health and communities to find common ground on the issues that impact them and helps to ensure that the decisions made consider the values and interests of all affected community groups.

For health unit staff: Community engagement enables them to hear new perspectives, learn new things, and gain more representative input that improves decision-making and the policies, programs and services that follow.

From the perspective of the community: Increased opportunities for engagement and collaboration deepen the communities' understanding of, and ownership of the decisions reached programs implemented and relationships built.

The literature is now quite specific about the range of benefits to be expected from CE within the public health context. Potential benefits for PPH to engage with our community members and local organizations include;

Helps us to respond to an issue that the community has defined, and on which it wants dialogue.

Increases credibility and accountability in decision-making, practice and policy.

Facilitates the incorporation local knowledge, expertise and ideas.

Saves time and money by addressing community concerns early in the process.

Improves democratic outcomes, or the equity or fairness of a policy or proposed changes, services, education campaigns etc.

Leads to more effective policies, programs or services.

Allows for the development of networks and a sustainable process to ensure the continuation of engagement (and coordination) in the future.

Fulfills mandated requirements. Engages community talent and skill in helping solve a problem that otherwise would not

be solved. Elicits community support for an initiative. Engages a community in a planning process. Provides a community with tools that will help it foster wellbeing among its members

(including wellbeing defined as a heightened sense of community among its members)

(Taken from “the Health Planners Toolkit” Government of Ontario, 2006, pg 1 and Community Engagement in the Region of Waterloo Public Health, Grace Bermingham, 2006, pg.6)

A strong culture of engagement provides the community with a greater sense of agency, purpose, connectedness and responsibility. These qualities promote social inclusion; a social determinant of health which benefits individual and community overall health and wellbeing.



Community Engagement Continuum

The Community Engagement Continuum is a framework that will be used by the Peterborough Public Health to plan engagement initiatives and determine what level of engagement is appropriate for each specific initiative.

INFORM

CONSULT

INVOLVE

COLLABORATE

EMPOWER

GO

AL To provide

stakeholders with balanced and objective information to assist them in understanding the problem, alternatives and solutions.

To obtain stakeholder feedback on analysis, alternatives and/or decisions.

To work directly with stakeholders throughout the process to ensure that their concerns and aspirations are consistently understood.

To partner with stakeholders in each aspect of the decision from development to solution.

Shared leadership of community-led projects with final decision-making at the community level.

STY

LE “Here’s what’s

happening.” “Here are some options, what do you think?”

“Here’s a problem, what ideas do you have?”

“Let’s work together to solve this problem.”

“You care about this issue and are leading an initiative, how can the City support you?”

Adaptation of the IAP2 Public Participation Spectrum

This framework is a continuum whereby the community becomes more involved the further to the right you go. There is no level that is better or worse; it is about selecting the appropriate level of involvement for a given situation. Each level builds upon the levels to the left. This means that if you are 'involving' the community, you are also informing and consulting with them as well.

On the left side, we are mobilizing people to support or provide limited input or feedback to our decisions. On the right side, we are organizing people to identify their interests and assets – they become deciders, outcome producers, advocates, leaders.

INCREASING LEVEL OF COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION



Principles of Community Engagement

These six guiding principles are the basis for best practice community engagement:

1 Demonstrate integrity, trust and transparency

The levels of community influence and process for engagement must be clearly communicated from the start.

Consultation and higher forms of engagement must be genuinely purposeful and not tokenistic.

2 Show respect Value all contributions made and the time given.

Provide timely feedback on the results of specific consultation.

3 Be inclusive Ensure a diverse and representative range of stakeholders is engaged.

Offer a range of accessible engagement opportunities to ensure that all people who may be affected by, or interested in, the outcome can participate.

4 Educate Information provided should be clear, consistent and use common language wherever

possible.

Always educate the community on the relevant legislative, strategic and local context to allow them to make informed decisions.

5 Work together The goal is to ‘do with’ the community rather than ‘do for’ the community.

Foster relationships with partners and the community by developing a solid understanding of mutual obligations and reciprocal responsibilities and benefits.

6 Plan well Strive to select a project scope and engagement activities that align with your

objectives.

Engagement requires informed judgement and planning in its approach and implementation to be effective, practical and suitably resourced.

Make it simple and convenient for the community to engage in the project. Engagement does not need to be complex but does need to achieve the identified engagement objectives.



Key Steps to Conducting Effective Community Engagement There are three key steps to conducting effective community engagement:

Plan your engagement

Implement the activities

Evaluate the outcomes against your goals

Plan Your Engagement

1 Assess the Need for Community Engagement Before beginning, it's important to clearly identify the issue you're hoping to address and decide if you should be engaging with the community to tackle it. If you just want to check a “community engagement” box and get it done, your engagement will likely fail and lead to greater distrust and conflict. If you sincerely see engagement as necessary to achieving better results, then proceed. To help you assess the need for community engagement, start with some of these questions:

Will engagement help you better understand the issue, make better decisions, and/or offer new ways to solve it?

Is it early enough in the decision-making process to hold meaningful public engagement?

Are there other community events or engagement activities that might conflict with the willingness or ability of the community to participate?

Has any previous engagement been conducted around this issue or a similar issue?

Can you time your community engagement activities to leverage the resources of other agencies or internal divisions who are planning or implementing a public engagement process?

Are there specific priority populations who are impacted by an issue or program?

2 Create Your Engagement Plan Planning your engagement is not a linear process, and will differ depending on a variety of factors. On the next page is a list of key components to consider when crafting your overall engagement plan for the initiative, opportunity or issue you are hoping to engage the community around.



Identify the Purpose

If you decide that engaging with the community is appropriate for the issue you are addressing, you need to then identify the purpose of engagement. It is important to be clear, direct, and transparent about your purpose for engaging community.

What are the objectives for your engagement and what are you hoping to achieve?

Why are you engaging the community?

What do you hope the community can gain from being involved?

Are you trying to inform the public about an issue, gain feedback from them or solve a problem together?

Which aspects of the issue are open to public influence, and which are not? Diving into these questions will give you a better understanding of what type of community engagement activities you should undertake and set you up to effectively determine what level of engagement is appropriate for your initiative.

Use the Why Engage? worksheet in the Community Engagement Toolkit

Select the Level of Engagement

With a clear understanding of the purpose of your engagement process, determine the level of engagement accordingly. It is important to invest in effective engagement as there can be significant financial, emotional and cultural costs associated with poor engagement practice. These include costs associated with:

Managing a community outraged at poor engagement or decisions

Increased time in obtaining project approvals and negotiated agreements

Having to implement supplementary processes to obtain information not generated by initial poor practice

A distrust amongst the community for poor or no engagement process which will, in turn, affect the level of community support for the overall project or organization

The implementation of policies or projects which do not meet community need as they are based on incomplete information

It is the responsibility of the health unit to carefully determine the appropriate level of engagement based on objectives, capacity, organizational commitment, strategic relationship building, timelines and budget using the expanded Community Engagement Continuum on the following page.



Community Engagement Continuum INFORM

CONSULT

INVOLVE

COLLABORATE

EMPOWER

GO

AL To provide

stakeholders with balanced and objective information to assist them in understanding the problem, alternatives and solutions.

To obtain stakeholder feedback on analysis, alternatives and/or decisions.

To work directly with stakeholders throughout the process to ensure that their concerns and aspirations are consistently understood.

To partner with stakeholders in each aspect of the decision from development to solution.

Shared leadership of community-led projects with final decision-making at the community level.

PR

OM

ISE

TO T

HE

AU

DIE

NC

E We will keep you

informed “Here’s what’s happening.”

We will keep you informed, listen to and acknowledge concerns and aspirations and provide feedback on how public input influenced the decision. “Here are some options, what do you think?”

We will work with you to ensure that your concerns and aspirations are directly reflected in the alternatives developed and provide feedback on how public input influenced the decision. “Here’s a problem, what ideas do you have?”

We will look to you for advice and innovation in formulating solutions and incorporate your advice and recommendations into the decisions to the maximum extent possible. “Let’s work together to solve this problem.”

We will implement what you decide. “You care about this issue and are leading an initiative, how can the PPH support you?”

HO

W One-way

communication Two-way communication

Series of two-way communication

Partnering with stakeholders; forming working groups; series two-way communication

Leadership tables; working groups; series of two-way communication

INCREASING LEVEL OF COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION



INFORM

CONSULT

INVOLVE

COLLABORATE

EMPOWER

EXA

MP

LES Reporting out

on inspections

New services being offered by PPH

Beach report

Press releases

Website posts

Development of the Food Handler bylaw

Development of PPH 2013 – 2017 strategic plan

Development of new premise inspection guidelines

Play Spaces Technical Advisory Committee

PPH role in many community Coalitions and Networks

Peterborough Drug Strategy

Risk Watch

Basic Income Peterborough Network

Precarious Employment Research Initiative (PERI)

Peer leader model

Peterborough Poverty Reduction Network Workgroups

PPH support to Neighbour PLAN

EXA

MP

LE T

ECH

NIQ

UES

Website

Email

Videos

Infographics

Social media

Ads

Posters

Information hotlines

Presentations/ live streaming

Expert panel

Displays / exhibits

Site visits/ tours

Media coverage

Public meeting

Polls

Voting

Surveys

Interviews

Focus groups

Workshops

Online forums

Online commenting

Social media discussion/ town halls

Voicemail commenting

Door-to-door

Kitchen table talks

Open houses / pop ups

Comment boxes

Workshops

Crowdsourcing ideas / ideation

Mapping

Digital storytelling

Design charrette

Mind-mapping

Visioning

Scenario testing

Citizens panels

Hackathons

Participatory budgeting

Leadership development

Large group meetings

Document Co-creation

Online communities

Open space

Working groups/ study circles

Decision-making platform

Citizen committees

Citizen juries

Community indicator projects

Asset-based Community Development



INFORM

CONSULT

INVOLVE

COLLABORATE

EMPOWER

CR

ITER

IA It’s a simple

problem

Doesn’t negatively impact the community OR A decision has already been made and can’t be changed

No community influence on the project, process or outcome

Timeframe = 1 month +

It’s a simple or complicated problem

Hearing from the context experts is important to land on the right solution

Some community influence on the project, process or outcome

The community is not polarized on this issue

Timeframe = 3 months +

It’s a simple or complicated problem

The community brings valuable experience

Community ownership of ideas is important

The community may be polarized on this issue


It’s a complicated or complex problem

There is significant widespread interest in addressing this issue

Shared leadership is important

Significant level of community influence on the project, process and outcomes.

The community may be polarized on this issue


It’s a simple, complicated or complex problem

There is lots of grassroots momentum

High level of community influence on the project, process and outcomes.

The community is not polarized on this issue


It is essential that wherever you are on the continuum, you must be clear and transparent about your position and fulfill the commitments of being there. The greatest tensions and conflicts come when leaders commit to a more involved, collaborative, or empowering level of engagement but deliver an informing or consulting level. If you aspire to more engagement, communicate that and take clear steps that demonstrate your commitment is real. It is also important to be transparent about how much influence you will allow the community to have in the outcome of your initiative.

Evidence informed practice takes time to make a plan, based on evidence that will meet the proposed objectives. Documenting rational for decisions made will promote transparency and create a pathway of thought to build upon.

Use the Select the Level of Engagement worksheet in the Community Engagement Toolkit



Determine Who Your Community Is

For some community engagement processes, communities will self-identify as participants. For other processes, community identification will be more difficult. Identifying communities is closely tied to the question “Who is a stakeholder?” and is similarly tied to the question “What is the purpose of this engagement strategy?” Identifying participant communities is also dependant on what resources are available for the project. Given infinite resources, an engagement initiative could engage (or try to engage) everybody. But resources are finite, and criteria often needs to be developed to guide decisions on who should be involved. The primary community you are looking to engage will be the people who would have influence on, or be most affected by, the issue, including particular consideration of priority populations.

Keep these principles in mind as you consider who to engage:

Engage those who know the community best. Recognize the knowledge and expertise of community participants, the “context experts” who live in the community and experience it day to day. Appropriate community engagement processes should provide opportunities for the thoughts, opinions, ideas, and vision of participating community members to be expressed, acknowledged, and incorporated.

Engage a representative group. Ensure you engage those who represent the characteristics of your defined community. For example, if an issue or project affects the entire community, then those that you engage need to reflect the sociodemographic profile of the community. An engagement process that relates to a small group of users can be more focused in terms of who is invited to engage, but likewise should attempt to involve as many people as possible from the targeted group.

Ensure your engagement process is accessible and inclusive. Accessibility is a key consideration for any effort to engage the community, beginning with the invitation. When planning an engagement process you need to recognise diversity, identify any potential barriers and design the process to minimize barriers where possible. See the PPH Accessibility Guidelines and the Ensuring Access to Program and Services Policy.

Consult a diverse, broad, cross-functional mix of internal staff who need to be kept informed and/or involved with your project and may have influence on how it progresses. These people may play a role in identifying the engagement community as well as developing the engagement plan (i.e. other programs working with the same population, other divisions, management). If you are engaging the school community or any municipal government please collaborate with the internal School and/or Municipal Liaison.



Use the Who Should We Engage? worksheet in the Community Engagement Toolkit

Select Your Engagement Techniques

There are a myriad of techniques you can use for community engagement. This is an area that is constantly growing and evolving, especially with the use of technology. Keep your key community groups in mind and then select the community engagement techniques that: reduce the most barriers to access, reflect your purpose and are most appropriate for your issue and/or the level of engagement you seek.

Use the Select Engagement Techniques worksheet in the Community Engagement Toolkit

Develop Key Messages

Key messages are the main points of information you want your audience to hear, understand and remember when they’re learning about or engaging in your initiative. When developing your key messaging, keep your purpose for engaging and your community in mind and ensure the language and tone accurately represents the voice of Peterborough Public Health. The Communication team can support this process if necessary.

Effective key messages are:

Clear – Free of jargon, devoid of technical language, and relevant;

Concise – Deliver key messages in 7-8 seconds, it might be all the airtime you get;

Consistent – Messages must be repeated if they are to sink in.

Use the Determine Your Key Messages worksheet in the Community Engagement Toolkit



Other Considerations

Other key components to consider include:

Schedule: Consider when your engagement process will begin and end for the community as well as for the heath unit. The schedule should include planning the project, publicizing it, and implementing the chosen activities. It should also include time for gathering feedback and reporting back to the members of the community who participated as well as those affected by the decision.

Budget: Develop a budget for your project. Different resource needs might include: Staff time – be sure to check that staff needed are available to support the engagement

in the ways you require and at the times that you need them. Accessible informational materials – print and online information, website development

and maintenance, graphic design, displays, etc. Logistics – accessible meeting venues, prizes, catering, printing expenses,

transit/transportation, etc. Incentives – participant funding and incentives to reduce barriers and motivate

participation. Consultant costs – when necessary, consider what kind of outside expertise your

process might require.

Accessibility: Consider options for any special geographies or groups (e.g. vision or hearing impaired, non-English speaking background etc.) and/or remote and isolated communities. See the PPH Accessibility Policy and Procedures and the Ensuring Access to Programs and Services Policy.

Evaluation: Consider how you will measure weather you are reaching your goals by reflecting on the evaluation plan as part of your planning phase. See the evaluation section, below, for more details.

PPH policy and procedures: If as part of your engagement plan you are collecting information from community members please refer to the Evidence Generating Activity (EGA) Policy and Procedure and fill out an EGA Pre work Assessment form (found on the HUB).

Bring this information together in an engagement plan to summarize.

Use the Engagement Plan worksheet in the Community Engagement Toolkit



Keys to Effective Design

Go where the people are – Consider community members’ and grassroots leaders’ interests, needs, and possible barriers to participation. Identify ways to accommodate them and make it easier to participate. Consider where meetings and forums are held and meeting times. Partner with groups that have high engagement and support them to connect you with their audiences.

Ensure that engagement is accessible – There are several important factors to address to ensure your community engagement consultation is accessible and inclusive, including accessible venues, ensuring people can access materials and attend meetings in their own language, child care, transportation, timing, and, creating an environment where everyone feels welcomed.

Consider how in-person and online techniques can co-exist – Use complimentary in-person and online engagement techniques such as online commenting and paper feedback forms. Also, use techniques that bridge in-person and online engagement experiences such as iPads at in-person events and invitations to in-person events through social media.

Alignment – Alignment of purpose, objectives, level and type of community engagement.

Always integrate your engagement techniques: Integrate communication channels – Invite your community to participate in

multiple ways. There is no one-size fits all approach. Integrate feedback – Always share how you will be using the feedback received. Be

accountable and deliver on that commitment. Integrate an ask - Always include an invitation to something else. For example, sign

up as a volunteer, attend the next event, or stay informed.



Implement the Activities

1 Align Internally Before you begin your implementation, take the opportunity to confirm readiness and gain approval from internal stakeholders. Be sure you and your project team are aligned and committed to executing the plan and that all involved have a clear understanding of their roles and the implications the project will have on both the health unit as well as the community. Ensure you're not competing with other initiatives and join forces whenever possible. Anticipate expected issues or challenges. Failing to consider barriers to your project early on may result in delays or conflicts down the line. Work with your team to consider possible obstacles or issues that might arise during your initiative and how you plan to mitigate them.

2 Create Your Implementation Plan With your overall plan in place and your team aligned, you can now map out all activities (techniques, methods of promotion, outreach and communications) that will take place throughout your engagement initiative as well as the considerations for each stage. An overview of key Community Engagement Techniques. Each activity in your Implementation Plan should consider the following:

Description – Describe the engagement activity.

Audience – List all community groups you are targeting in order of priority.

Communication Channels – Select the communication channels you will use to invite or share with the community.

Anticipated Outcomes – Outline the outcomes you hope to achieve with your activity.

Timeline – Decide on key dates and deliverables.

Responsibility – Specify the roles and responsibilities of the members of the project team.

How Feedback Will be Used – Share how the data collected will be synthesized, shared and used to inform decision-making.

Cost & Resources – Outline resource requirements including equipment, venues, team members' time, and external resources.

Evaluation: Start collecting data to help support your evaluation throughout the implementation phase. See the evaluation phase for more information

Use the Implementation Plan worksheet in the Community Engagement Toolkit



Understanding the Cost of Engagement

Community engagement processes have overt and hidden costs. Overt costs are usually covered by the process’s budget. Hidden costs are usually not covered by anybody but the person incurring the costs. The most pronounced hidden costs are often the lost opportunity costs and the inconvenience costs associated with participants’ investment of their time in the process. Understanding the hidden costs, and doing whatever is possible to see that these hidden costs do not fall more heavily on some members but not on others, can help prevent resentment from creeping into the process. You should be clear and explicit about what you understand the limitations to be, such as time constraints, finances and resources available.

3 Adapt As you implement your engagement, follow the implementation action plan as closely as possible while also leaving room to make necessary adjustments over time. Fully prepare your team to carry out each activity in order to maintain the integrity of the project and be cautious as to any major change in the plan, as participant trust will be threatened by unforeseen changes mid-stream. Trust that the thought and effort put in during your planning stage will help to ensure the quality, productivity and efficiency of each activity throughout your implementation. This does not however mean that the plan will remain completely unchanged along the way. As you start implementing, be open to the idea of your plan or techniques evolving and allow for adaptation and responsiveness. New factors, not previously considered or known may arise that need to be added, or certain activities you had planned to carry out may need to be altered or removed altogether. These evolutions will be guided by the ongoing feedback you are collecting from your participants and the level of success you achieve within the community. If you’re needing to adapt your plan significantly, return to your overall engagement plan and re-evaluate scope. Finally, remember that clarity of the issues and options will improve as the process moves along, as engagement efforts usually start with a broader set of factors, information or questions, and then move through options to prioritization and decision-making. Have patience as this process takes place.

4 Monitor and Report Back to the Community Throughout Implementation

To keep your plan adaptable and relevant to those participating, you will need to build in monitoring and feedback measures along the way. Documentation, reporting back and “doing what you said you’d do” at each phase of your project builds trust and momentum as your initiative progresses. To do this, within each phase of your community engagement process integrate a feedback loop to report on what's been developed so far and offer opportunity for your audience to feed into identifying and prioritizing next steps. Milestones important to report back on may include:

Outline of project process

Summary of opportunities to participate

Summary of community engagement discussions

Idea generation summary and aggregation

Identified solutions or next steps

Areas of agreement and disagreement

Actions taken as a result of engagement process

Next steps Incorporating a feedback loop also provides an opportunity to confirm with your audience that the information collected is accurate and properly understood. By engaging your community throughout the process and adapting your plan accordingly, the outcome of your project is far more likely to resonate with the people who will be most closely affected by its outcomes and therefore help to solidify its acceptance and sustainability after the engagement process is over.

Keys to Effective Delivery

Celebrate incremental change – the 'good enough' approach will take you far as long as you continually learn and adapt.

Allow the plan to adapt as feedback is gathered. Always feed what you hear back as an informing technique.

Ensure your engagement is representative of your community – In order for your engagement to be valid the feedback needs to ensure representation, diversity and inclusion.

Ensure it is a positive user experience – Make sure that your engagement techniques are easy to use for people of all skill levels.

Facilitate inclusively. Encourage participation, explain concepts that may be new to members, call out jargon, spell out acronyms. Go around the table and ask each person their view. Make sure everyone is engaged.

Your data is your asset – Be sure to validate the data you are using is accurate and that your processes for collecting data considers possible errors or discrepancies, such as duplicate responses. Make sure data can be exported/imported easily.

Keep these principles of effective feedback in mind:

Respond to all inquiries: Ensure that all participants who raised questions about the project have been adequately responded to, as agreed.

Document findings: Prepare a report that documents all findings and outcomes of the engagement activity as well as clear recommendations pertaining to the design, process, procurement or delivery of that initiative. Outline comments and questions received and how the community's participation influenced the final decision or recommendations. Include key learnings from the engagement process as well as recommendations for how future consultation processes could be improved.

Report back to participants: Provide a version of the report to the public who participated in your project. By 'closing the loop' and reporting back to those who took the time to engage, you will foster a greater level of trust, transparency and integrity around the project, the engagement process and future activities and initiatives.

Use the Feedback Loop worksheet in the Community Engagement Toolkit

Keys to Effective Feedback Loops

Always educate - At every moment in the process explain what has happened to date and outline the key information before asking people to respond.

Show the impact of their contribution – People like to see themselves in the results. Inviting the community to be active in the process builds community ownership and increases the likelihood of success for your project.

Thank the community for their participation - Thank you’s can be big and small. Both are always appreciated. Consider words, public recognition and physical gifts.

Be creative and have fun in how you report back. Use a variety of methods such as newsletters, postcards, emails, infographics, videos and websites – do not assume that all participants are computer literate. Make sure communications are timely, jargon-free and accessible.



Evaluate the Outcomes Against your Goals

Evaluation helps to increase and share learnings from your efforts and should be part of every engagement initiative. How you will measure your efforts should be part of your planning phase. Collection of the evaluation data generally happens during the implementation phase. Consider the following as you synthesize the evaluation data collected and document, and share findings with, community and stakeholders, during the evaluation phase:

Document your process: Ensure all documentation relevant to the project is recorded and stored in the appropriate location. Think about including a project highlights document or a briefing note that makes key learnings accessible to colleagues. Consider presenting the outcomes of your community engagement to teams and individuals who may find the content or process relevant.

Debrief with project team: Hold a debriefing meeting for the project team and other relevant internal stakeholders to reflect on the project and report back the outcomes and lessons learned. Analyze the results of the project in relation to the purpose by asking:

Did we get the participation we hoped for?

Did participants understand the process and their role in it?

Did participants understand the effect their participation had on the final decision?

Was the process timely and effective? Did the engagement initiative improve

decision-making? Was the process accessible and

flexible?

Evaluate the success of engagement activities: Compare the outcomes of your engagement activities against the objectives identified in your Community Engagement Plan.

Use the Evaluation worksheet in the Community Engagement Toolkit



Attempt to Evaluate both:

Overarching engagement goals

Did the overall process work to achieve the goals?

Possible things to evaluate: • Goals & outcomes • Community awareness • Participation across the whole project Geographic scope Demographic scope Involvement scope

• Planning and resourcing Internal capacity Internal alignment Actual costs vs budget

Specific engagement techniques

How did each technique contribute to the goals?

Possible things to evaluate: • Goals & outcomes of the technique • Participation in technique Geographic scope Demographic scope Involvement scope

• Success in providing timely feedback

It may also be an opportunity to evaluate community relationships, trust in the organization or community partnerships depending on the Community Engagement Plan objectives.

Evaluation Techniques to Measure Success

Number of survey responses, attendees at public meetings, formal submissions, email/phone correspondence, etc.

Feedback forms completed by the public during the implementation stage

Website unique visits, time spent on-site, email open rate and click-through rate

Observational feedback by project team regarding community opinions at public events

Market research surveys, focus groups

Showcase participant experiences using techniques like: digital storytelling, participant interviews and Most Significant Change. See Index of Community Engagement Techniques



Community Engagement Challenges, Vulnerabilities, and Unintended Outcomes

Challenges and obstacles are an inevitable part of community engagement and should be considered in the development of your community engagement plan. Below are some common challenges that should be anticipated and planned for accordingly:

Lack of Representativeness

The reality that not all members of a community can, or choose to, engage in the same way often effects the representation of the input you'll receive throughout your project. To address this, offer a variety of different accessible engagement activities – both in-person and online – in different locations and at different times of the day. If forming small groups (such as working teams, advisory boards, focus groups, etc.) consider having individuals elected by the wider community and/or ensuring that they have the public's interests at heart.

High Expectations

The process of engaging with the community raises expectations of community members and puts pressure on those leading the initiative to deliver on what they promise. Be sure to establish the scope of your engagement upfront and be clear about what aspects of an issue are open to public influence. Set realistic, measurable goals and provide practical timeframes, resources and expectations around the process being implemented.

Lack of Equity

Communities are diverse, and special care needs to be taken to ensure that the less powerful voices and groups are engaged and not marginalized or tokenized. This means including people with diverse backgrounds, people with disabilities, youth, people from non-English speaking backgrounds and Indigenous people. Offering subsidies, incentives and participant funding may be necessary to reduce barriers and motivate participation.

Negative Past Experiences

When a community has negative past experiences taking part in addressing community issues, their involvement in future projects can be greatly impeded. Doing a thorough scan of past engagement initiatives in the area is imperative in situating your own work in a context that is aware, respectful and ready to adequately address concerns that may arise from the past. Conducting your community engagement initiative with transparency and openness and consistently communicating with participants about how their feedback is feeding into the project will help to build trust throughout the project.



Consultation and Volunteer Fatigue (Asking Too Much of Community Members)

When asking community members to take part in decision-making and partnership opportunities there is a danger of asking too much of them, leading to stress and exhaustion. Avoid making community actions too dependent on a few voices, rather than building a platform to consider a wide range of community members in a variety of forums.

Engagement as a Checkbox Community engagement is only successful when the end justifies the means. If engagement is conducted in a way that is tokenistic or fails to truly honour or value the role the community can play in influencing decision making, it will fail to create positive change and will run the risk of causing further damage within the community affected. Do not view community engagement as a checkbox, but view community engagement as a way to leverage the gifts and assets that exist in a community to create positive, relevant and sustainable outcomes for the betterment of all.

Directional Shifts Community engagement can be 'messy.' The process may not play out exactly as you planned and it can take time to focus your efforts, especially as the groundwork is being laid for collaboration. Be mindful of what commitments you’ve made to the public at the outset of your engagement. If you have committed to collaborating, be sure to remain open to compromise on the plan you’ve laid out.

Not Valuing Context Experts

Understanding the value in involving both content (knowledge of theory and practice) and context (knowledge from lived experience) experts in tackling community issues cannot be understated. Failure to include participants who have direct experience relating to the issue you are addressing will result in outcomes that are un-relatable and ultimately will not address the concerns of the people who may know the issue you're facing most intimately. It is important to note that context experts need to play a meaningful role in your engagement project, and power dynamics should be considered when planning your engagement activities to ensure all voices are given a platform to contribute.

Potential Conflict

Addressing and managing conflict around public issues is a challenge that almost all community engagement efforts will encounter to some degree or at one point or another. While it can be tempting to avoid conflict, keep in mind that not all conflict is negative and when managed effectively can contribute to public awareness around the project as well produce increased project outcomes. The key is to manage conflict in ways that are productive and most importantly foster trust and build relationships. Try to uncover the root issue – opposition is often easier to address when we understand what the real resistance is all about.



Engagement Efforts Lack Consistency and Coordination Across Departments and Initiatives

Try to avoid working in silos within your organization when engaging with the public as it can translate to your organization appearing disorganized and work against you in your mission to gain trust and accountability with the public. Further, working together will help to leverage resources effectively. During your planning stage, consider what other initiatives may be going on within your timeline, and explore opportunities to connect to not only inform one another of activities but to find opportunities to leverage each other's funding and capacity.

Dissatisfaction with Engagement Techniques Selected When selecting your engagement techniques it is important to use a variety of approaches in order to reach community members in a medium and environment they are comfortable and feel empowered within. Some individuals may find traditional consultation methods such as public meetings or newspaper advertisements disengaging and unable to meet the complex and fast paced expectations issues are situated within today. Others may be dissatisfied when online engagement is too heavily relied upon as it may not be accessible to all individuals in a community. Offering an array of options for people to get involved will help to make sure people who are interested in getting involved have a way to do so that is comfortable and convenient for them.

Addressing Capacity when Resources are Scarce

Capacity will always be a barrier when it comes to planning your engagement - but don't let that deter you. Being conscious of capacity and resourcing pushes us to plan more strategically and gives us permission to plan our action items intentionally with emphasis on initiatives that target the right audience, meet people where they are and garner meaningful input and feedback from those who are most affected by the issue being addressed. Be clear and deliberate with the techniques you choose in your engagement initiatives and don’t miss an opportunity to gather and report feedback within each phase of your project. Being honest, authentic and responsive to your approach is more important than the quantity of engagement activities you conduct.

Deciding who Should Lead and Facilitate the Engagement It's important when selecting public facing representatives that they are trained and equipped to represent the project fully and have the experience to address and manage conflicts with confidence. Facilitation is not the practice of taking the reins, but of providing constructive leadership whereby others take responsibility to craft answers to complex issues without necessarily being subject matter experts. Facilitators should balance time, the degree of uncertainty of the issues and process maturity of the organization/group in order to help them find the best possible actions to address the issue they are confronting.



People Don’t Show Up When planning an engagement activity, there is always the fear that you won’t get the participation you hope for. To increase your chances of getting the right people involved consider the timing and location of your event; what other events you can piggy-back on; food, refreshments and incentives to participate; on-site child-care; clear objectives communicated for your gathering; effective promotion, outreach and reminders for your event. Most importantly, ensure your event is meaningful, fun and effective. The best way to lose participation is to invoke a poor experience or memory leading to lower involvement in the future.

Overbearing Participants When hosting a community engagement event, you will want to prepare for participants who might try to hijack the agenda. To combat this, ensure you are well staffed in order to address issues that arise; have a strong facilitator who can respond appropriately to polarizing voices; offer a variety of formats to share so that people remain engaged and have a chance to speak; set a clear agenda and create ‘parking lot’ for ideas that arise outside of planned activities; always maintain respect.

Documents

Community Engagement Guide...“community engagement” box and get it done, your engagement will likely fail and lead to greater distrust and conflict. If you sincerely see engagement