Community Participation Essay

Community participation is about ensuring meaningful engagement with our communities.
What Is Community Participation?
Although this may appear to be a simple question, there is no single definition of participation by communities but, rather, a potpourri of definitions varying mostly by the degree of participation. The continuum on the next page provides a helpful framework for understanding community participation. In this continuum, "participation" ranges from negligible or "co-opted"—in which community members serve as token representatives with no part in making decisions—to "collective action"—in which local people initiate action, set the agenda, and work towards a commonly defined goal.

For health promotion to work well, it must be

Community engagement is where the community is empowered to apply its’ collective skills and resources to increase its’ level of influence and control. In health terms, this might be to improve the community’s health needs and address the local determinants of health.

Community participation relies on us having a good understanding of the communities, groups and individuals we work with. Effective interventions rely on community participation. Effective interventions are achieved when the community supports the identified health needs, priorities, capacity and any barriers to action.
We all have different life experiences. Effective community participation means we, as health workers, need to be able to listen, empathise and respond to the many communities within which we work.
Health promotion practice is about inclusion. The way we work needs to encourage community participation and place people at the heart of our health actions.

Community

It is unfair to ask youth to change their beliefs and behaviors without also providing community support for these changes. Especially when reproductive and sexual health issues are controversial and/or taboo, it is critical to bring other community members into the process so that they, too, can support healthy change.

If implemented properly, community participation can be effective for a number of reasons.
• Communities have different needs, problems, beliefs, practices, assets, and resources related to sexual health. Getting the community involved in program design and implementation helps ensure that strategies are appropriate for and acceptable to the community and its youth.
• Community participation promotes shared responsibility by service providers, community members, and youth themselves for the sexual health of adolescents in the community.
• When communities "own" adolescent sexual health programs, they often mobilize resources that may not otherwise be available. They can work together to advocate for better programs, services, and policies for