How to... encourage people to get involved?
Why is this important?
Involving communities in decision making has many benefits. But it can sometimes be difficult to know how to do this effectively. Some common problems include:
• Nobody wants to get involved at all
• It’s always the same people who get involved
• It’s only a certain type of person who gets involved
It is important to try to tackle these problems, because:
• Community engagement is about making sure that people have a say over what happens in their area. Everyone should have equal access to this opportunity.
• Public sector organisations need to make sure that everyone has an equal chance to access services and activities by law in Scotland. But this is not the only reason for trying to involve lots of different people.
• The more people you involve, the more you will understand local views. Services and activities will be better if you know what people need and want.
• By gathering the views of different people you get a balanced perspective of community views.
• Different people need and like to be involved in different ways. It’s important to make sure that barriers like timing and type of events, accessibility, transport, childcare or money aren’t getting in the way of hearing what people have to say.
How can we do it?
Involve all communities What have others done? • Be proactive – dedicate time to meeting with local community groups. Find out how areas across England have worked to empower Muslim women by taking a proactive approach. • Target your activities – the way you design consultation activity can have a big impact on who gets involved. In Fife, User Panels were set up to make sure people over 70 can get involved. In Ayrshire, Getting Together Days involved people with learning difficulties and their carers. Guidance • Are we being served? Top tips guide to involving disabled people (New!) • Breathing Fire into participation – involving young people |
Use exciting methods What have others done? • Use lots of different methods – in Shetland, a week was dedicated to using a wide variety of different ways to gather people’s opinions on the future of their community. • Support people to take decisions about public money – this approach has been used in Bradford – where you can see a video of participatory budgeting in practice - and Harrow. • Use drama or art to gather people’s views – Toonspeak builds young people’s capacity to make decisions about their community, through drama. In Leith, art was used to involve people in decisions about how open space was developed. Guidance • Guide to participatory budgeting (New!) • Breathing life into democracy – using participatory budgeting (New!) |
Listen to people and take action It sounds simple. But people will only get involved if they believe that their views will be taken into account. The main reason for people not getting involved is that “nothing ever changes”. What have others done? • Provide feedback – After a 5 day Charrette consultation event in Australia, organisers dedicated time to holding follow up meetings, publicly displaying options and reporting consultation outcomes to other groups. • Involve people in taking action – In Holland, a local trust was set up to manage improvements to a local park. In Lincolnshire, the local authority has focused on involving young people in taking action about the issues that are important to them. • Make community involvement an ongoing process – In England, one local authority set up community boards to involve people in decisions, with a budget of £50,000 for each area. Guidance • Connecting with communities: communications toolkit (New!) |
Find out more... in our previous Questions of the Month:
