Talking about public health can be tricky, because so many of the terms we use sound like jargon. When public health professionals are talking to each other, that may not be a problem; but when we’re trying to explain our work to community members or professionals from other sectors, the words we use might be confusing. Because CHNA 20 is deeply committed to growing collaborative relationships with all members of our communities -- not just the public health experts -- we’ll be periodically sharing simple explanations of complicated-sounding jargon we use when we discuss our work. We hope this will help demystify some of the jargon and make our efforts more understandable and accessible to our communities.
What is Community Engagement?
Community Engagement sounds like a straightforward practice. On the surface, it’s simple: To do work that impacts a community, it’s generally best to involve the members of that community in the work being done. But true engagement is much deeper and more complex than just “involvement.” In fact, when done well, community engagement may be one of the more complicated aspects of any public health initiative.
A successful community engagement strategy takes into account several core values and principles for public engagement:
Core Values
Well-defined core values of public participation are central to designing a community engagement strategy that’s both productive and ethical. The following core values were developed by the International Association of Public Participation:
Those affected by a decision have the right to be involved in the decision-making process
Public participation includes the promise that the public’s contribution will influence the decision
Public participation promotes sustainable decision-making through recognizing and communicating the needs and interests of all participants
Public participation seeks out and facilitates the involvement of those affected by a decision
Participants help design how they participate
Participants are provided with the information they need to participate meaningfully
Participants are made aware of how their input affects a decision
Core Principles
The Public Engagement Principles Project expands upon the core values by offering a set of guiding principles to help organizations design their community engagement efforts. These principles encompass shared beliefs and understandings of experts working in public engagement, collaboration and conflict resolution. They provide a best-practice approach for organizations and initiatives seeking ways to engage with the communities they serve.
Careful planning and preparation: The design, organization and convening of any community engagement efforts should be planned to serve both the needs of the participants and the clearly defined goals of the project. In other words, even before outreach to the community begins, a planning process should take place to consider how to balance the public’s needs with the needs of the project.
Inclusion and demographic diversity: Equity is the cornerstone of ethical and successful engagement. In order for a community engagement strategy to be reflective of the public’s needs, diverse ideas and perspectives have to be responsibly solicited and incorporated.
Collaboration and shared purpose: Community engagement should include support and encouragement for collaborative work. Members of the community, the project stakeholders and the institutions and municipalities involved need to be supported in coming together to work toward a common goal.
Openness and learning: The community engagement process can only be successful if all participants truly listen and learn from each other. New ideas and perspectives should be explored as a group, and any efforts should be evaluated for effectiveness so the group can learn and adapt as they go.
Transparency and trust: Record-keeping -- and providing access to those records -- is a vital aspect of ethical community engagement. Clear and consistent communication to the group and to the public at large help build trust.
Impact and action: Engaging the community should be done in service of projects that have clear potential for change. In other words, don’t waste people’s time unless there is the true possibility of a positive outcome for their communities; engage them in ideas and initiatives that have a high likelihood of success.
Sustained engagement and participatory culture: Over time, community engagement and public participation will become easier and more fruitful if there’s a culture in place to support those efforts. Work with others -- institutions, organizations, municipalities and community groups -- that are invested in following these principles and promoting ethical community engagement.
What does ethical Community Engagement look like in real life? Are there any pitfalls or downsides to incorporating public participation into our work?
The upsides to public participation far outweigh any downsides! For public health efforts to truly achieve long-term, sustainable change through collective impact, community engagement is an absolutely necessary component of the work. However, one of the reasons community engagement can be so tricky to get right is that in the real world, it’s difficult to thoughtfully design participation efforts that consistently meet the core values and principles.
In its Spectrum of Public Participation, the International Association for Public Participation outlines five key levels of community engagement. Each level includes both a promise -- the explicit value a community engagement strategy offers to the public for their participation -- and a pitfall, which encompasses the ways in which organizers might fall short in keeping the promise. Here’s how it might play out in a real world project.
Inform
The Promise: We’ll keep you (the community) informed of what’s happening.
The Pitfall: Lack of transparency.
For example, maybe a well-meaning decision maker withholds some information because they worry that it will cause conflict. But because they’ve withheld that piece of information, seeds of confusion are sown and misinformation spreads instead. Rumors take hold and suddenly, the community is unable to trust that they’ll be kept informed -- because the promise was broken, even with good intentions.Consult
The Promise: We’ll listen to the community and acknowledge the feedback that’s provided. The Pitfalls: Inauthentic participation; feedback disregarded; some members left out of the process.
For example, the organizers invite community members to give feedback at in-person meetings that are held during the workday -- leaving some community members out of the process due to access issues. To solve that challenge, the organizers then provide a survey that only has check boxes, so community members are only able to choose from pre-filled answers. That format invites inauthentic participation, because it doesn’t allow community members to really voice their own thoughts and opinions. But in the end, the organizers look at all the answers given and disregard them anyway, because the information collected doesn’t match their original ideas about the project and would be too difficult to take into account in a meaningful way.Involve
The Promise: We’ll work with the public throughout the process to ensure public concerns and interests are understood.
The Pitfalls: Community members don’t receive training or support to participate fully; engagement is inauthentic or exclusionary by design
For example, maybe organizers decide to convene a community board or focus group that they’ll check in with regularly throughout the project. But the selection process for the group includes only choosing community members from a particular demographic segment, or people who are “recommended” for the role, rather than a transparent selection process open to the whole community. Or perhaps the group is seated more democratically, but then only invited to meetings where they’re kept informed rather than consulted, or asked to weigh in on simplistic parts of the project rather than big-picture items. When the group asks to be more involved, they’re given a complex and difficult action item that requires specialized knowledge, but not provided with the training and support to help them achieve their goal.Collaborate
The Promise: We will look to the public for advice and incorporate that advice as much as possible into our decision-making.
The Pitfall: Public partners are exploited or disempowered.
For example, maybe the decision-makers involved in the project undertake a partnership with community leaders so they can solicit advice throughout the process. But rather than truly working together, the decision-makers consistently assign a large share of the workload to the community leaders, then take credit for the positive outcomes. Meanwhile, when challenges arise, the decision-makers distance themselves from the problems by discrediting the community leaders, who are deemed “responsible” for the project’s failures.Empower
The Promise: We’ll implement what the community decides is the best solution
The Pitfall: Public partners are left to manage a process without appropriate resources, capacity or shared leadership.
At this stage, the community partners involved in the project recommend solutions for implementation. However, the decision-makers then cede control of the implementation to the community and remove themselves from meaningful participation. For example, maybe the organizing group identifies a few key projects, and assigns them to public partners to manage. But the partners chosen don’t have the staff, monetary resources or expertise to complete the projects successfully. Because the organizers view themselves as being there for “oversight” or “management” rather than direct service work, they don’t pitch in to provide the support needed, and the project fails -- despite the fact that it’s the solution the community wanted.
It’s far too common -- and too easy -- for these types of challenges to come up during community engagement processes. That’s why, despite sounding like an easily defined concept, community engagement can be one of the most difficult aspects of social change projects to get right. Well-meaning organizers often start out with the best intentions, but inadvertently marginalize, disenfranchise or disempower the very people they wanted to help in the first place. Our goal as a CHNA is always to work with our communities in ways that uphold the best practices and principles of ethical community engagement, and to help our community partners do the same.