COMMUNITY ENGAGMENT AND INCLUSION

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COMMUNITY ENGAGMENT ANDINCLUSION

• BCHCL Fraser Region Regional Gathering
• Saturday, November 7, 2009

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OVERVIEW

• Community Capacity Building
• Social Capital
• Engagement
• Why, what ,where, who , when, how
• Levels of engagement
• Models of engagement

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COMMUNITY CAPACITY BUILDING

• Abundance of Social Capital
• Strong connections with the outside world
• Willingness and capacity to welcome and integrate
  newcomers
• The ability to adapt and innovate
• Has the capacity to collaborate

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SOCIAL CAPITAL

• Indicators of strong social capital in a
  community
• Opportunity and willingness to belong to
  community associations
• Caring and willingness to participate in
  community
• Opportunity for formal and informal connections
• Sense of trust and a belief in the strengths of
  the community
• Strong leadership and mechanisms to develop new
  leaders
• A balance between formal structure, informal
  networks and individual responsibility

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COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

• Definition
• People working collaboratively , through
  inspired action and learning, to create and
  realize their bold visions for their common
  future (Tamarack)

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STRATEGIES FOR ENGAGEMENT

• What process or initiative are we undertaking?
• Why do we want to engage key stakeholders in this
  process? Are there distinct groups of
  stakeholders?
• Who should we be connecting to? How do we know
  this?
• When should we be approaching people?
• What will they be doing? How will they be
  involved?
• What strategies will bring us the most success?

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MODELS of ENGAGEMENT

• Tamarack
• Passive, reactive, participation, empowerment,
  leadership
• WiserEarth Blog Engagement Pyramid
• Members, contributors, evangelists, leaders
• Projenco formal planned approach ie. Plan,
  budget, engage and report
• Improvement Network Community mapping
  (understanding connections), participation
  assessment ( identifying partners), capacity
  building( making it happen) and information
  gathering and delivery. ( an ongoing process)

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KEEPING OUR BEST RESOURCES/RULES OF ENGAGEMENT

• Have Fun!
• Start where the people are
• Utilize the gifts that each person brings
• Strive for results
• Celebrate Success and recognize caring neighbours

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INCREASING COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

• Information
• Communication
• Consultation
• Involvement, participation
• Empowerment

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SUMMARY

• Community Engagement is one, very key, step in
  the process of community building
• Understanding the community, the history and
  infrastructure, the associations that exist and
  the people who live there, is essential to the
  process of building community
• Creating a shared vision with the engagement of
  key stakeholders puts everyone on the same page
  and moving in the same direction with
  collaboration.

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RESOURCES

• Tamarack An Institute for Community Engagement
  www.tamarackcommunity.ca
• The Case Foundation www.casefoundation.org/spotlig
  ht/civic_engagement/gibson
• Simon University Fraser www.sfu.ca/dialogue/study
  practice