Consultation approaches for communities
From Norfolk RCC
Contents |
Principles and desired Outcomes of Community Consultation
- Who are the experts? - Local people are the experts in their community; their knowledge and experience need to be recognised.
- Whose community is it? – It is important that everyone has a chance to have their say, be listened to and have their opinions respected.
- Need to build trust and respect between different participants.
- A clear and agreed agenda will focus on the key issues.
- Various types of activity will ensure that everyone can engage in a style that suits them.
- Need to understand the context for different groups and any constraints that groups might face.
For more information click here media:Consultation Methods.doc
Encouraging People to take part
Getting people interested and taking part in the consultation can be the hardest part of all. Make sure that your consultation is advertised. Use newsletters, press releases, village website and posters. Keep people informed. Hold meetings and events; write to village groups and invite them along. Even when you have done this some people may still be excluded from the process, for example the young or older people. For your consultation to be effective you will need to identify these groups and go to them.
For more information click here media:Catching people's Interest.doc and media:Ways of promoting your event.doc
Activities
The following methods and techniques give people the opportunity to raise and address local issues and be actively involved in the decision making process in their community.
The tools are often visual and allow people to participate in discussions about their community in a way that they may feel more comfortable with. The tools can be used with groups or individuals and can last a few minutes or several hours. They are designed to cut across barriers such as age, gender, language, literacy skills, and lack of confidence.
Tools
Timeline
Chart the history/progress of a community or project. Useful as a starting point for the community or project especially if there have been any blocks to progress in the past. These can be identified, the issues around them discussed and then hopefully put down as past experience to be learnt from - so you can then move on.
Mapping
Mapping is a very effective tool for getting people to discuss their community and assess what is a good, what needs improvement and what is bad. Use coloured flags to invite people to jot down their comments and place them on the map. For example you could use red flags for problems, blue for improvements and yellow for what is good in the community. Or you could use a different colour flag for identified issues such as green for environment, pink for housing etc.
This technique be used at an event set up specifically for planning or you could take it along to the local fete or set up outside the local shopping area to gather opinion.
Suggestion Boxes
Leave boxes for people to put their suggestions in at local shops, pubs, village hall, doctor’s surgery, schools, churches or anywhere appropriate.
Mind Mapping
This tool quickly identifies the many strands and elements that make up a community, group or project. Works best with a group of people as more elements are identified.
Graffiti Board
Useful for young people, visit them at their youth club or local sports club and just get them to jot down their thoughts. Some parishes have encouraged young people to attend their parish plan consultation day by laying on a special function for them such as live music and the graffiti board has been near at hand.
Video/Audio/Camera
Invite participants to record their views by filming or taping them. Ask the youth club if they would like to make a video. Give disposable cameras to families to take photos of their favourite places (or least liked) in the Parish. Owners of mobile camera phones can use these if preferred. This can promote discussion and some photos can be used to illustrate the final Parish Plan report.
Walkabout
Interested local people and representative from groups can have an annual walk around the community. This can be an opportunity to discuss its issues and talk about improvements to the area
Positives/Negatives Charts
Draw up a chart of positives and negatives in the community.
Interviewing groups and individuals
Semi structured interviewing guided by information gleaned from previous consultation activities. This would provide more detailed information on particular topics. For example, exploring the need to upgrade kitchen and toilet facilities in a village hall.
Prioritising issues
Make a ‘now, soon, later’ or ‘very important, quite important, not important’ chart and provide sticky stars for people to prioritise ideas. Identify who is going to take the ideas forward, what agencies can help you and whether you need funding and if so who is going to fund.
Local Skills Survey
Identify people’s skills and what if anything they would like to do in their community. Make up a list that people can tick as appropriate and make sure they can write down their details if they want to volunteer their time.
Some useful skills are:
Acting, Artwork/design, Campaigning, Catering, Computer operating, Driving a bus, Driving a car, Facilitation, First Aid, Fundraising, Journalism, Photography, Public speaking, Publicity, Running a bar, Running a café, Sports, Teaching, Typing, Video Work, Writing/editing, Youth work.
