Having carefully considered what Community Engagement is all about including its benefits to Communities, Authorities and Organisations this section provides a basic checklist for effective Community Engagement. It should be used in conjunction with guidance for nurturing engagement relationships (click 'Easier engagement',left). The checklist isn’t exhaustive, further guidance is available through the Community Unit (click 'contact details', left).
Starting Community Engagement - A New Relationship
| AIM | PURPOSE | OUTCOMES |
| What is this for? | Why is this being done? | What is needed and wanted? |
| PARTICIPANTS | TRUST |
| Who will be involved? | How will trust be established? |
Delivering Community Engagement - An Effective Relationship
| LEVEL | INFORMATION | SKILLS | PARTICIPATION |
| What level of engagement will be effective? | What information is needed? | Are effective skills in place? | What are the incentives and constraints? |
| TIMETABLE | RESOURCES & RISK |
| What is the required timescale? | What are the available resources? |
Starting Community Engagement: A new Relationship
This check-list recommends questions to think about when planning community engagement.
What do you want to engage about?
- Set a clear aim
- Know what can or cannot be changed
- Consider the aims of ALL potential partners
- Consider how aims might be compatible
- Give potential partners the opportunity to be involved as soon as possible
- Be clear about what people can and can’t influence and why.
- Write a media and communications plan
Why are you doing this?
- What is the purpose of the activity?
- To share information? Why?
- To find out about needs? Why?
- To involve in setting priorities? Why?
- To strengthen a community? Why?
- To devolve services? Why?
What results and benefits are wanted? Are the outcomes clearly defined?
For each potential partner:
- Identify contentious issues
- Agree compatible outcomes, targets and milestones
- Agree how measurement will take place
- Be sure that the engagement relationship is properly focused
- How will results be used?
Who do you want to engage with?
- Communities of Interest?
- Geographical Communities?
- User groups?
- The General Public? Individuals?
- Stakeholders
Are there others who need to be involved?
Are there others who want to be involved?
- Consider why each partner should be involved?
- What might they contribute?
- Explain what is expected
- Listen to what is expected of you
How will trust be established?
- Do potential partners know each other?
- What history and current feelings are around?
- Are you learning from history or ignoring local knowledge?
- Is history being repeated, are wheels being re-invented? Maybe they need to be - maybe the last one was square?!
- What can be done to help build trust?
- What can be done to remove cynicism?
- Look out for saboteurs!
- How will media communications be handled?
Delivering Community Engagement: An Effective Relationship
What level of community engagement relationship will be effective?
- Is an ongoing day-to-day working relationship helpful to this issue? (Such as in setting up a local housing trust)
- Does the community want a light-touch relationship? (For example in a strong community that dislikes interference)
- What % of project / programme costs is being invested into engagement? Is this appropriate?
- Are selected techniques appropriate to this engagement?
- Have non-traditional techniques been considered?
- Are there examples of best practice you could draw on?
Do key colleagues have effective communication skills in:
- Listening
- Mediation
- Negotiation
- Is training needed and / or practical within required timescales
- Could a mediator or facilitator improve the process?
- How will conflicts be resolved?
What are the incentives and constraints to participation?
- What are the incentives to participate?
- What makes it worthwhile?
- What are the constraints?
- Have issues of access, transport, availability and ‘power balance’ been considered?
- Are there barriers to personal safety?
- Have special interest and ‘hard to reach’ groups been effectively included?
What is the required timescale to deliver the agreed outcomes?
- What are the time constraints?
- What can help to buy time?
- Is the timetable realistic for all partners?
What are the available resources?
How will you manage risk?
- What types of resources are available? (People, logistics etc.)
- How can all resources be joined up?
- What are the resources required to achieve the outcomes?
- Are there different ways of using resources to achieve the outcomes?
- What risk management arrangements are there? Is there flexibility to cope with the unexpected?
- Remember Health and Safety
- Is there a training need?
- What other Community Engagement is going on?
- Is any other similar work currently taking place to share resources?
- Has any similar work been done recently that could be used?
Assessing Community Engagement: A Proven Relationship
How will you know outcomes are achieved? Has it made a genuine difference to local well-being? Has something improved?
- How will you ensure effective, ongoing performance management?
- Who will you feed back to?
- How will feed back take place?
- Will feedback work both ways?
- Who will performance be effective for?
- How will results be used for long term benefits and to assist others?
- Do partners still want to work with each other?!
- How will you celebrate successes?
- How will you manage failures?
Progressing Community Engagement: A Strong Relationship
How might a relationship become an effective partnership?
- What written agreement is needed?
- What governance arrangements will you set in place?
- What financial ‘regulations’ will you need?
- What codes of conduct?
- How can you protect enthusiastic community spirits from dying under partnership bureaucracy?