Let's Talk Community Engagement

In this episode, Lisa Attygalle from the Tamarack Institute joins Andrea to talk about community engagement.

Lisa describes community engagement as working together with the community to create the future that we want. Figuring out what we want the future to look like is an active conversation: once we have the future we want define, we can decide how we will work together to create it. Lisa recommends the IAP2 Public Participation Spectrum as a community engagement model. The spectrum describes engagement on five levels: inform; consult; involve; collaborate; and empower. 

Community engagement is a critical part of public health practice as it’s important for communities to be involved in developing the solutions that affect their lives. Communities are context experts: they bring the voice of lived experience to the content experts (usually people in paid professional positions within the health sector). Pairing content and context expertise makes for better solutions that have community ownership.  Not engaging communities can mean that our programs and services don’t meet the needs of communities and risk wasting resources. In this way, engaging communities can be a key to efficiently spending resources such as time, dollars, relationships and trust. 

Before developing an engagement strategy, it’s important to consider WHY you are engaging prior to jumping determining the method of engagement (such as a survey or focus group). Lisa has 4 WHY questions:

1. WHY is community engagement important to the project and how will it contribute to the results of the project?
2. WHAT are your objectives? For example, to inform decisions? To make decisions together? To establish relationships? To enhance community leadership skills?
3. WHAT is the benefit to the community? There must be a reciprocal benefit to the community. 
4. WHAT is on the table and off the table? Set the parameters for what is possible, in terms of time, budget and solutions. 

One piece of advice that Lisa would give to those working in community engagement is to “close the loop” with communities. In other words, give feedback to the community on what was heard in the community engagement process and what was done with their ideas. You don’t have to have all of your “ducks in a row” before communicating with the community.

The Tamarack Institute’s many Community Engagement tools and resources can be found here. In particular, the article on Community engagement: a foundational practice of community change is a must read!