Community Engagement Archives | Max Hardy Consulting

Engaging to make a difference. A conversation with Ben Neil.

01/02/2021 By Max Hardy Leave a Comment

I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with a wonderful community engagement practitioner, Ben Neil. He has so many stories from his wealth of experience. Here is some of what we spoke about.

Max: Ben, give us a really brief description of your role at Capire and professional background?

Ben: I have been at Capire for almost four years and am an Associate and Sector Lead for Social Inclusion and Housing. The role allows me to work on projects that I find really rewarding and that are a perfect compliment to my skills and experience.

My professional background is very varied. I’ve held senior roles in Government, the not-for-profit and charity sectors and now the for-profit sector. I was previously CEO of Cultivating Community who are a not-for-profit specialising in urban agriculture services through supporting community gardens and food security projects. This gave me a deep insight into the everyday lives of people who live on the public housing estates of Melbourne.

While at Mission Australia I was Social Enterprise Manager for Victoria. This was a really rewarding role as I looked after Charcoal Lane, a restaurant specialising in using native ingredients whilst providing training and employment opportunities to young Aboriginal men and women. I also ran a smash repair shop that aimed to reduce recidivism by working with young people involved in vehicle related crime, then supporting them to obtain apprenticeships in the industry. Both projects provided high levels of wrap around support to maximise the chances of success for the participants.

In Government I managed a large housing office on an estate that was going through a renewal process. Managing a site with large scale construction and 1,650 tenancies certainly honed my skills at dealing with complex conflict situations and outrage.

Max: As a consultant at Capire, what kind of work gives you the most
satisfaction?

Ben: There are many elements of my role at Capire that give me a very deep sense of personal and professional satisfaction.

From the perspective of working with clients I really enjoy advising and supporting in a collaborative manner. Working closely to solve complex and challenging issues really excites me, especially when the outcomes have a positive impact on the community. It is especially rewarding when our engagement has a positive impact on the participants. Whether that’s increasing their capacity to engage in the process, gaining knowledge on a particular topic or growing their confidence levels and willingness to participate in democratic decision making in the future.

Max: Do you have a story, or example, you can tell us about, that illustrates this?

Ben: One of the most satisfying experiences I’ve had at Capire was a project in a large inner-city estate in Melbourne. It was a significant project which included six weeks of engagement that gave us multiple opportunities to work with the community. We worked closely with the local community centre who were running a course for people to become interpreters. A couple of the students were tenants and keen for some work experience prior to completing the course and becoming NAATI accredited. We invited them to help out at a few pop-ups and an informal community meeting. One in particular was incredibly impressive managing to hold a conversation in three different languages at the same time! She was genuinely interested in what we were doing and actively reached out to members of her community to encourage them to participate. It was amazing to see her confidence grow and I was touched to receive a letter of thanks a few months later. This person now works as a professional interpreter and was incredibly thankful for the opportunity that we had given her as it helped grow her confidence in pursuing her career.

We stayed in touch and a few months later I was running one of our Learning Labs on the benefits of taking a social inclusion approach to engagement. I asked her to come along and share her experience. It was very inspiring to have been part of her journey from student to effectively teaching 25 engagement professionals about how best to work with interpreters.

In many ways our involvement was small but I love it when we can think outside of the square with our approaches and passionately believe this benefits the engagement process, the individuals involved and leads to better outcomes.

Max: Wow. What a great story. So, tell me, what do you believe you bring to the engagement profession or practice?

Ben: I’d like to think there are many things I bring to the engagement profession but the key one is to try and embed social inclusion into all my projects no matter how big or small. I feel very privileged to have had many roles in my career that have let me elevate the voices and opinions of our most disadvantaged. We need to make sure engagement is accessible and all people are genuinely supported to participate.

Max: I know you pay lots of attention to the experience of people in being engaged. How do you believe this attention can transform the outcomes of engagement processes?

Ben: I honestly believe, as an engagement practitioner, we really need to think about the impact of our work both relating to the project and the legacy that it leaves. I think a key deliverable for all engagement practitioners is to make sure we build people’s capacity through positive participation so it encourages them to participate in the future.

Having a community wanting to participate in civic decision-making leads to better outcomes for all of us. It is easy to underestimate how positive engagement experiences can impact other aspects of people’s lives.

Max: What advice would you give to organisations that want to take their engagement to the next level?

Ben: This is a tricky question as it depends very much on where the organisation is in its engagement journey. Things like core principles about how they or their consultants develop and deliver engagement strategies are incredibly valuable. This can really help communities who are asked to participate regularly and prevent the same mistakes being made over and over again.

I guess my two most practical pieces of advice are be open to opportunities to build the capacity of participants and to draw on their strengths, and most importantly, if you’re not going to take notice of what people say, then don’t bother asking them the question!

Max: Well, there it is. Engagement that makes a difference – and not just by improving decisions. Thanks Ben!

How safe is it to participate?

27/07/2020 By Max Hardy Leave a Comment

Something we don’t discuss much is the importance of the ‘do no harm’ principle when engaging the community (especially relevant now with the Covid-19 pandemic). Anthony Boxshall and I identified ‘people feeling unsafe’ as one of the key challenges to co-design. We rely on bringing together a diverse community of interest, but what do you do if alternative views are not welcome, or indeed people fear the consequences of participating and expressing unpopular or inconvenient points of view? This can be even more challenging than just ensuring physical distancing at this time.

People do feel unsafe to participate – for a variety of reasons.

Before considering potential tactics to address this, it’s important to understand that fear can be well-founded.

While working in Northern Queensland with agriculture extension service providers, I heard of a farmer who decided to get more serious about sustainable agriculture practices, only to be shunned by other farmers in the district. She became known as the ‘witch on the hill’, and many would no longer talk to her. They believed she left their tribe; a very sceptical tribe when it came to acknowledging climate change impacts, or damage to the Great Barrier Reef their farming practices may have been contributing toward.

On another project, about 7 years ago, which involved exploring options to secure power supply to an inland region, two shop owners decided to support a particular option that others were concerned about. The result was that their township turned on them, to the extent that people would not shop there, and young people were warned not to apply for work there. Ultimately it put them out of business.

On another occasion, I managed to talk a council officer out of his plan to overwhelm opponents of his ‘pet project’. He wanted the council to construct an off-road cycle path from a seaside town to a village in the hills. The only difficulty was that the path would go through several farms, and the farmers had never been spoken to about it. The council officer wanted me to facilitate a large town-hall meeting, because there were several hundred cyclists who would attend, and they would ‘drown out the voices of those farmers’. We ran quite a different process, of course, but this could easily have led to divisive, unpleasant consequences.

There have been other projects where people have been physically threatened. On one occasion, at a public meeting, I attended as an interested citizen (not as the facilitator, for a change), there was a punch-up between two young men who had opposing views. Although not much damage was done physically it had the effect of dissuading community members to continue being involved. It felt scary and polarising.

During a Core Values Renewal process for the International Association for Public Participation, for which I was the process team chairperson in 2008, Australian members proposed an additional core value, one that said something like this: “Public Participation aims to leave a legacy of a stronger and more cohesive community of interest as a result of the process.” I was surprised when we failed to gain the support of the majority of members attending the session, held in Montreal. Members from the USA in particular felt it was going too far (code for, it sounded a bit pink – or socialist!?!?!). I left scratching my head, thinking, ‘surely it is not ok to engage communities and leave them more polarised, feeling less safe, and less confident to be able to shape the world they lived in.’

Of course, many thought such a Core Value had merit, and it is something I know that many community engagement practitioners pay attention to. There are quite a few practical measures to improve safety, though we can probably never guarantee it will always feel safe to be involved. Being involved will change things, and choosing not to participate will also come at a cost, let us not forget that.

Of course, many thought such a Core Value had merit, and it is something I know that many community engagement practitioners pay attention to. There are quite a few practical measures to improve safety, though we can probably never guarantee it will always feel safe to be involved. Being involved will change things; and choosing not to participate will also come at a cost, let us not forget that.

So what can we do to help participants feel safer?

Here are nine tips I have learned along the way.

Meeting with individuals and small groups on their turf is a good way to start. Learning what they care about and how comfortable they feel mixing with people with different views. This is still possible in a COVID world by arranging a call or video call at people’s places at a time that suits them.
It’s worth doing some research to consider what has occurred before. Not just reading about it, but also talking to people who have worked with the community previously.
‘Dialogue for understanding’, something a colleague Paul Waite specialises in, can be really worthwhile. You can read about this approach here. It’s a process that does not aim to reach agreement, or to see who can win a debate. Dialogue provides a safe space for people to share their view of the world, and to listen to others. Listening for understanding can help prepare people to participate in a co-design process; they may even find they have more in common than they first thought.
Involving randomly selected participants in a process to work through a controversial issue, can moderate the behaviour of those with more extreme views. It is not uncommon for participants to call out the aggressive behaviour of others if deemed inappropriate.
As a facilitator I have found it much more useful to encourage the participation of more people than to try to ‘manage’ or ‘control’ those who are trying to monopolise a conversation and behaving aggressively. Focusing attention on how to elevate the participation of all seems to be a more effective way of not giving too much power to the most aggressive participants.
There are methods that make it safer for people to express their views; digital polling methods, using applications like Poll Everywhere, Menti and Slido, record and display collective results while ensuring individual anonymity. Jason Diceman’s Feedback Frames is another method for making it safe to express feedback on different ideas.
Using video so people can share their views (their faces can be hidden and voices altered) is another way for people to share views and stories, in a way that doesn’t require them to be in the same physical space with others who disagree.
We are not more accustomed to using Zoom and other online meeting tools, which can also help people to feel safer. This can also be used in conjunction with digital polling tools, and other programs. It is one of the benefits derived from Covid-19 restrictions.
Finally co-designing the process with a range of people will help to factor in safety measures. There is no ‘one-size fits all’ process when it comes to community engagement. Working it out together helps to prepare the space where people can deliberate safely, and work toward enduring solutions.

Now it’s your turn. What are your reflections on safety issues related to community engagement, especially co-design processes?

If you are interested in joining our Authentic Co-design Community of Interest, then sign up here.

If you want to hear about how Anthony Boxshall, Susan Carter, and I have responded to a range of other challenges you may like to tackle our self-paced online training course, Authentic Codesign. More information about that here.

Debunking myths about ‘deliberation’

14/07/2020 By Max Hardy Leave a Comment

There is much being said and written about deliberation. This is not surprising, especially in Victoria, Australia, where the new Local Government Act stipulates this is the way to now engage communities. So, I thought I’d make a contribution as a practitioner who has promoted, designed and facilitated deliberative processes for over 20 years. In doing so I am hoping to help local government and other organisations to avoid the trap of limiting their thinking in terms of how to incorporate deliberation into their engagement.

Myth 1
There is a universally agreed definition as to what it actually means when it comes to deliberative community engagement.

I don’t believe there is, but there is broad agreement about principles of deliberative democracy, described by Professor Lyn Carson as inclusion (ie; recruiting an inclusive, stratified mini-public), deliberation (providing a process to assist the mini-public to make a well-considered judgment) and influence (the recommendations of the mini-public need to be genuinely considered and responded to transparently).

Deliberation is meant to enhance decision-making; to make it more democratic, more thoughtful, and less open to manipulation (eg. powerful corporations making political donations expecting favours in return). There is also agreement that deliberative community engagement goes beyond merely harvesting opinions. Collecting opinions by encouraging people to ‘have their say’ is quite different from a cross-section of the public hearing evidence, considering a range of viewpoints and arguments, and working toward agreed recommendations. Deliberation involves people being curious and using critical thinking skills to make well-informed judgments.

The process by which this happens is a different matter. Here are just a few of the areas where there is less agreement:

Do all participants need to be recruited randomly by a third-party?
Should the days of evidence be heard on consecutive days, or spread out several weeks apart?
Is the remit of deliberative panels and agendas set by process experts, by ultimate decision-makers, or panel members, or a combination?
Do presenters of information stay to observe proceedings, with a right of reply, or do they present their evidence and take no further part?
Does a panel need to reach consensus, or just a substantial majority, say 80%, to convey valid recommendations?
Should the panel be no more than 24 members, or is around 45 a better number? Can a panel of 300 people still work in a deliberative way?
Can people deliberate online, or must it be face to face? (Quite a few practitioners have attempted to facilitate deliberative sessions online in recent months).
Do all deliberative panels operate at the empower level of the IAP2 Spectrum?

I’ve found deliberative practitioners hold a variety of views about such questions. So, while there is fairly strong agreement about what deliberative community engagement is meant to achieve, there is not so much agreement about what it looks like in practice.

Myth 2
There is only one way to do it.

As you can probably tell from my response to Myth 1, there are many ways that a deliberative community engagement process can be organised. Citizens juries, citizens assemblies, deliberative polls, people’s panels, and deliberative forums, all differ in some respects, but are informed by principles of deliberative democracy (or should be). The illustration below is my attempt at describing a number of variables.

Let’s see how different two deliberative processes might be. The first is Australia’s First Citizens Parliament, held in Old Parliament House, Canberra in February 2009, which I proudly contributed to as one of the lead facilitators, alongside Professor Janette Hartz-Karp.

The scope was a broad, codesign style question, about how Australia’s Democracy could best serve the people of Australia.

In terms of influence, where there was no commitment by government to act on it. It was more of a research exercise to show how deliberation can work, and the extent to which citizens can appreciate complex issues. It was partly funded by the Australian Research Council.

In terms of composition, citizens expressed interest in participating and from there were randomly selected, so that we had one citizen representing each federal electorate.

Regarding duration and scheduling, it was held over 4 consecutive days.

In terms of size we have 151 citizen parliamentarians, one for each Federal electorate.

Process governance? Expert Advisory Committee.

In terms of transparency it was a closed session, so no public gallery, although a team of researchers observed and recorded the process (in fact a book was produced with much of the research results).

Witnesses were selected by the process governance group.

Regarding relationship to broader public, a series of workshops and forums were held to promote the research project, and where people were encouraged to register their interest, so broader engagement fed into this deliberative process.

The response to each variable for Australia’s First Citizens’ Parliament is coloured red, as shown below.

By contrast, and without going through each of the variables, the deliberative process I ran with Anna Kelderman, Shape Urban with the City of Vincent (Perth), to develop a thirty-year vision looked quite different. It was called Imagine Vincent. One noticeable difference was running the process at the Empower end of the Spectrum. It was the community’s Vision being articulated, and Council then responded to it in terms of how Council could support progress toward this Vision. Another variable which differed was the iterative nature of the relationship between the deliberative panel and the broader public. The deliberative panel first worked together to frame questions for the process. After extensive board engagement, the panel reassembled to consider some of the challenges and issues which emerged, and then finalised the vision. Take a look at this video to get an idea about how this worked.

Again, without going through each of the variables, the deliberative process following on from the Hazelwood Mine Fire to design the air monitoring system looks quite different again, as shown below. The main difference with this was the involvement of stakeholders in helping to design the process, scientists working with the panel through the process of codesigning the solution, and the level of influence was at the level of Empower.

(If you are interested in Codesign process you may wish to join our Community of Interest, and receive a free step by step guide).

Phew, the next three will be quite a bit shorter. The key message from all this is that there are many different variables, and there are definitely different ways to do deliberation.

Myth 3
It’s best to get out of the way to let the experts do it for you.

I’ve written about this in a recent blog. I firmly believe the best processes are ones where the consulting team work collaboratively with the organisational project team, and even working collaboratively with some key stakeholders. Co-designing the process is the best way of building support for the process, and making the most of collective knowledge and insights. Don’t let anyone tell you, the client, to get out of the way to let them make all the process decisions.

Myth 4
Deliberative engagement is the only worthwhile type of engagement.

Deliberative engagement is superior in quite a few respects, but other forms of engagement also have value, and sometimes are much more appropriate. Take for instance a project to engage the community in new ways to help prevent suicide. It is not about deliberating over any single decision (although deliberation could be useful to work out how best to allocate resources for a suicide prevention strategy); it is about a movement for system-wide change, to involve as many as possible in the process of being more aware of risks, and groups and organisations working better together to provide support appropriately. It is a different kind of community engagement required for systems change, which I have written about previously.

Of course, it is not about choosing between participative engagement (where large numbers of people being involved is a key objective) or deliberative engagement (where smaller numbers examine a matter at depth). Some of the best processes are ones where the two kinds of engagement work together (such as the Imagine Vincent example). Only doing deliberative community engagement, without any broader engagement, can be criticised for involving too few people to be valid, and depriving people who are keen on the opportunity to contribute.

Myth 5
Deliberative engagement is really, really expensive.

It can be expensive, but it doesn’t have to be. For complex projects investing in a robust deliberative process, along with other forms of engagement, is likely to be a great investment (especially when compared to the alternative – see Nick Fleming’s article Taming the Flames).

A really inexpensive process that leads to greater mistrust, domination of the process by powerful interest groups, and which does not impress decisionmakers or the broader community, is very costly.

Having said that, it is fair to say that local government cannot afford many deliberative processes run in the form of a classic citizens’ jury. However, a large panel recruited for a longer period of time (say two years) can be used in a very cost-effective way. Smaller groups selected out of the larger group, can be invited to deliberate over different kinds of issues over this period of time. Online deliberation is also more possible; although it might not be the same as face to face session, online tools are being refined all the time toward achieving a greater level of deliberation. Tools like Synthetron, Ethelo and Text, Talk and Act are quite affordable for local government and can take participants on a journey whereby a much higher level of deliberation can be achieved (compared with online discussion forums).

There you go. Five myths and my response to them. In summary, here is my advice about local government doing deliberation:

Be clear on principles, be open about the methods.
Work with consultants who are willing to collaborate with you.
Co-design the process with a diverse range of people, including consultants, internal and external stakeholders.
Consider how broader engagement can complement, and inform, your deliberative processes (and yes, I believe this can occur in an online environment, though it’s more challenging).
Trust your community. Be confident that if you make space for community members to deliberate you will be rewarded with their wisdom, your reputation will be enhanced, and you will meet all the requirements of the new Local Government Act (if you operate in Victoria).

So, do you have any other questions, or maybe other myths, relating to deliberative community engagement?

Learning from Covid-19. How what we are learning now can transform how we engage into the future!

30/04/2020 By Max Hardy Leave a Comment

Engaging communities at a time of physical distancing presents some real challenges for local government. In an earlier article, I asserted that doing sophisticated engagement online, even deliberative community engagement, is possible. I really believe it, but I am not pretending it is straightforward, nor that it is adequate on its own. It does mean doing things differently though and seizing the opportunities that exist.

Let’s face it, community engagement is never perfect. It is never perfectly representative; the processes are not perfectly supported by organisations, nor is the output perfectly considered. It is always a matter of making trade-offs with our processes, limited by budget, time-frames, and the capacity of communities to be involved. But we have come a long way in the last 20 years. Here are some things that I’ve noticed are much better.

Organisations no longer consider a once-off public meeting as being an adequate community engagement process.
There is more effort made to connect with the ‘harder-to-reach’.
Organisations no longer focus their efforts on just trying to placate those who are well organised and most vocal.
Organisations provide a broader range of opportunities for communities to be involved; we don’t usually just provide one way to contribute.
Organisations are generally clearer about genuine parameters and constraints; and open to putting more ‘on the table’ that can be influenced by the process.
Organisations ask better questions, and scope engagement more thoughtfully.
We make more space for deliberation to occur, where complexities can be appreciated, and well-informed, considered judgments can be made by a diverse range of participants.
Organisations are more confident of citizens rising to the occasion, generating great ideas, exercising sound judgment, and being central to building solutions – they view communities as an asset rather than a problem to be solved.
Organisations make more of an effort to explain how engagement has influenced decision-making, strategies and plans. They close the loop better than before.

We do not want to lose these gains at this time. In fact, I would suggest it is even more important we engage authentically right now. But what are some of the challenges? Here are a few.

Not all councils have IT systems that allow staff to collaborate in online platforms (such as Google docs, Basecamp and Trello).
Councils have often invested in one online platform (such as Engagement HG or the Hive) and are reluctant to spend money on different ones. As a result council officers may not be able to offer the range of digital opportunities they’d like.
Not everyone in the community has access to reliable internet services, or the skills to use digital platforms. Whereas previously support could be provided by library staff, that service is not available right now due to physical distancing restrictions.
Transitioning existing community engagement processes to digital only engagement is proving to be more time consuming than expected. Practice sessions, revisions to presentation material, negotiating authorisations from IT, and requiring multiple people to be available during video meetings (in case someone has a bandwidth problem), all take time.

My recent experience has shown that worthwhile engagement can still be undertaken. It is important to remind ourselves that people can adapt; we can be creative, we can experiment and we can rise to a challenge. One of the ways to proceed has been to invite stakeholders, community members and project teams to work out the process together. Staying humble and asking; “How can we continue to work on projects that are important to keep progressing? Let’s learn to do something different together. Let’s not aim for a perfect process, just one that we can help us to keep moving in the right direction.”

This asks for a special kind of leadership too, and leaders can be found all over the place. It involves holding the space within which we can work things out together. It certainly means being gracious when things don’t work out as planned – avoiding the blame game, and seeing what we can learn from every experience.

What is evident with this kind of approach and leadership is it is the same kind of approach that works best in a pre and post Covid-19 world too. Let’s make sure we take these kinds of attitudes and mindsets when we have more options available to use for future engagements.

Community engagement – definitions applicable to systems change

21/10/2019 By Max Hardy 2 Comments

I’ve been pondering how we understand this term ‘community engagement’ and realising how important it is that we develop an agreed understanding of it before designing a community engagement process. There is no single universally applied understanding of the terms, community engagement, public participation, or citizen involvement. The terms are used interchangeably. Perhaps, the most widely used definition comes from The International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) definition is widely used.

“Engagement, or public participation, is a process for making better decisions that incorporates the interests and concerns of all affected stakeholders and meet the needs of the decision-making body.”

The IAP2 Spectrum describes five different levels of engagement, Involve, Consult, Involve, Collaborate and Empower. Each of these levels refers to the extent to which participation influences decision-making. Even the term ‘empower’ in the IAP2 context, is about delegated decision making; it does not align with the community development concept of empowerment.

Although a useful framework for decision-making, the IAP2 definition and the Spectrum, do not relate well to systems change. It is more than just influencing a decision; and one that is set largely by a single sponsoring organisation.

Here are some other definitions:

‘Simply put, community engagement seeks to engage the community to achieve sustainable outcomes, equitable decision-making processes, and deepen relationships and trust between government organisations and communities.’ Crispin Butteriss, Bang the Table (who also writes about this in his article ‘What is community engagement, exactly?’.

‘Community engagement seeks to better engage the community to achieve long-term and sustainable outcomes, processes, relationships, discourse, decision-making, or implementation.’

Center for Economic and Community Development

And how about this definition for employee engagement.

‘Employee engagement is the emotional commitment the employee has to the organization and its goals. This emotional commitment means engaged employees actually care about their work and their company.’ Kevin Kruse, Forbes

We know that community engagement is not only about decision making. Capire developed the engagement triangle to show that engagement can also be about capacity building, and strengthening relationships. This is helpful, and yet when working on a suicide prevention strategy it was apparent to me that we did not only want to engage the community to merely inform decisions, build skills or strengthen relationships. The engagement itself was the solution. We were seeking to help communities to discuss the taboo subject of suicide; and thereby enable everyone to get the help they need, or offer the support required, in a new way. It was about changing a system, and engaging people in conversations about this topic was the vehicle. So, we reframed ‘Engaging the community to help prevent suicide’ to ‘a Citizen-led strategy for suicide prevention’. The engagement was the means and the end. Engaging communities to transform how we talk about, think about, and behave regarding suicide ideation, means something quite different to engaging a community, for instance, about a new parking policy. The kind of engage is different. Engaging that primarily informs a decision or policy may not require ongoing engagement. Once the decision is made and is implemented we just get on with our lives. For systems change the engagement is ongoing; it is iterative, and it informs behaviours, attitudes, builds social capital, and become synonymous with the solution itself.

The Tamarack Institute definition of community engagement is one that sits better for this kind of engagement:

… people working collaboratively, through inspired action and learning, to create and realise bold visions for their common future. (Tamarack, 2003)

This definition works better for ‘systems change’, and for ‘movement building’. There is an opportunity to flesh out this nuance; so that it is clear when we refer to engagement or participation it is this kind of meaning and aspiration.

What is important is that we don’t say one definition is superior to any other. It is simply getting agreement about what it means for a particular situation. No definition works for every kind of engagement. Perhaps the big lesson here is that we don’t just assume we share the same meaning or intent when we talk about engagement. One way to help do that is to ask the question, what might be the most positive legacy this process would leave us with? For the engagement that informs a decision it might be, ‘participants know their input has been valued, understood, and have clarity as to how their input has contributed to decisions made’. For a suicide prevention strategy, the legacy might be ‘a community is more capable and confident in talking about suicide; and that people are better connected, less isolated, and better able to support each other and ask for help’.

What are your thoughts? Have you ever found yourself talking at cross purposes with other people when discussing community engagement?

Engaging to make a difference. A conversation with Ben Neil.

How safe is it to participate?

Debunking myths about ‘deliberation’

Learning from Covid-19. How what we are learning now can transform how we engage into the future!

Community engagement – definitions applicable to systems change

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