Community engagement is premised on the democratic idea that those who are affected by an impactful issue should have input into the decision-making on the issue.
Although there is no commonly agreed definition and the use of the term varies widely (participation, consultation, empowerment, collaboration), community engagement encompasses its meaning in mutual decision-making. Governments, organisations, individuals and communities work collaboratively to create and attain sustainable visions for their community’s future. For governments and organisations, it’s about working with, and listening to communities, to build long term relationships and develop meaningful solutions to complex issues. Through relationship-building, the value of inclusivity is central – where government entities create dialogue with the diversity within communities.
It’s acknowledged that by recognising the opinions, visions and needs of all participants, community engagement promotes the idea that, through intentional interactions between government organisations and communities, community members can (and do) influence policy-making. Community engagement’s promise is to better engage community to help make better collective decisions, as a positioning toward the importance of community members’ experience and values which influence interactions between government organisations and communities, and a methodology that guides the process of those interactions.
From policy development and process design to plan implementation and independent analysis, we offer strategic engagement services.
Holistic Engagement Services
From co-design through to embedding evaluation, we specialise in planning and delivering quality, holistic engagement processes.
Working Visions helps organisations to increase the investment value of your engagement activities.
Strategic Advice
Is your engagement activity failing due to a disengaged community, or poor planning? Do you have a risky project coming up? Having trouble reaching a target group?
We offer high-level, expert advice that’s tailored to your project or challenge.
Internal Policy Development
Striving to build internal commitment and capacity to enable your organisation to be more engaging?
Working Visions can work with your team to collaboratively develop engagement frameworks, processes and policies that guide and increase the effectiveness of your engagement activities.
Evaluation, Reporting, Analysis
Analysis is a key evaluation step that begins to make meaning of the evaluation data you have collected.
Reporting the subsequent evaluation results is an important step in documenting findings and staying accountable to stakeholders, increasing the authenticity of a process and retention of the meaning and intent of peoples’ input. We can assist your team to embed these factors into your processes.