Methods of Consultation and Engagement of Communities

Bring together a small group of people, generally not more than six to ten people, to discuss in an informal setting some issue in depth for between one and two hours.

Consist of five to twenty people, who are brought together on several (at least three) occasions to discuss specific issues.

Derived from public meetings, workshops and planning for real approaches, are named as such, because (a) the stakeholders actually have to work; and (b) they are made to feel they really make a difference in a real-live issue – and that consultation is not simply a token gesture.

People – in the presence of a skilled facilitator – are encouraged to act out their interpretation of what they want, or what they do not want from a service.

Multimedia technologies offer a powerful medium for the documentation and dissemination of stories. Multimedia technologies allow: stories to be expressed in their most appropriate form e.g.

• performance, dance, song, writing, cultural trails, painting etc;
• Community members to tell and document their own story;
• The opportunity to disseminate and educate the stories to the broader community, including students and tourists;
• An extensive range of mediums to be used to tell stories e.g. photographs, text, sound, images, video etc.;
• Stories to be transferred onto a range of formats including CD or DVD; or
• Stories to be updated, modified and added.

Key associated outcomes comprise:

• Enhancement of Social Capital by forging and strengthening relationships between community members and stakeholders;
• Provision of vital input to Regional Sustainability Strategies;
• Identification of community values and future aspirations;
• Incorporation of all aspects of sustainability – economic, environmental and social – at the regional level;
• Creation of a shared community story, vision and sense of place;
• Engagement of all community members;
• Development of concrete goals and strategies for the pathway to sustainability; and/or
• Strengthening community cohesion and sense of place.

Allows people to see the impact of changes, possibilities and constraints they had not thought about and to express preferences, usually by presenting them with a plan or three-dimensional model of a local area or of some proposed development.

People with opposed views on some issue are identified and brought together in a group work situation, with a view to informing and educating each other about their respective concerns and reaching agreement about issues or working out solutions which all sides can accept.

Using a structured approach and a skilled facilitator, consensus building brings together, in a group work situation, representatives of different, but not necessarily opposed, interests to arrive at an agreed position or decision on some issue or solution to a problem.

About bringing together stakeholders to share a future vision for a community or an organisation.

Brings together different stakeholders for visualising a shared future for a community, perhaps many years hence, with a view to arriving at a goal acceptable to all concerned.

Bring together 18 to 24 people from communities of interest at odds with each other (e.g. commercial and environmentalist), in the presence of a facilitator, to forge common approaches and solutions to local problems.

The key instrument for the collection of information in social surveys.

Self-completion questionnaires involve respondents writing down their own answers to questionnaires, usually delivered to them by post but also quite often handed out to them at events, in public places, or possibly as part of a group work activity.

Constitute one of the main methods of collecting information in social surveys.

Use largely open-ended questions to record experiences or explore issues or problems in some depth and at some length with interviewees.

Skilled interviewers take respondents through a series of pre-determined questions on the telephone and record the answers on a record-sheet.

Trained evaluators pose as customers/users of services and observe and report on such things as quality, promptness, reliability and friendliness of the service.

This research technique may be carried out through trained observers, cameras or by closed circuit television.

Comprises 100-200 citizens who meet on a regular basis, say once a month, to act as a sounding board for issues of concern or importance.

This panel need not meet so regularly and they work with survey methods (questionnaires, interviews, etc.) to test public opinion on various issues.

A representative, but very small, sample of the population meet like a court jury to deliberate a particular issue over a number of days.

Allow the public to arrive at a modified view/opinion, after hearing the views of others.

A panel of about 10-20 lay people put questions about a topic of scientific, political of social interest to experts, listen to the experts’ answers, and then reach a consensus about this subject before finally reporting on their conclusions at a press conference.

User panels are a helpful way of keeping providers of services in regular contact with users of their services, who are thereby encouraged to become involved in the development of the service.

An important means of ascertaining public opinion on some major issue or concern of great public interest.

Advantage can be taken of developments in new technology, such as electronic networking, to sound out or test public opinion on various issues and make public information more readily available.

Public meeting is a generic term for any gathering of people brought together by an issue of common interest or concern.

A means of bringing together various sections of the community, often at a neighbourhood level, and involving them in a wide range of issues of community concern.

Use public meetings and other means (eg. user or standing citizens’ panels) to focus public interest on specific initiatives or areas of concern, such as community or pedestrian safety.

This type of public meeting can follow the format of public meetings, but is expected to take a broader, longer-term perspective rather than focus on issues of more immediate concern.

Is a systematic approach to gathering information about an area and the needs of its communities, facilitating discussion, analysing each of these and disseminating the results for group work activities.

Makes use of focus groups and surveys, supported by specially developed software, to rank priority needs of an area.