Essay On Community Engagement

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Community Engagement Strategy

Community engagement is the active participation of local residents and community groups in the decisions that affect their lives (Herefordshire Council, 2013). Therefore, community engagement should be about engaging in open communication to ensure the council understands the needs of the local community.
The aim of community engagement should not be a tick box exercise but to understand the area from a community perspective and tapping into that local knowledge before proceeding with a strategy or an individual scheme. Good community engagement will promote the participation of local residents, business, groups, developers and agencies in order to get a level of understanding of each needs and vision for Rusholme.
There are five levels of community engagement that need to be achieved for a good meeting with the local community which are:
• Informing
• consulting
• involving
• collaborating
• empowering
Informing the community would be done by providing and alarming the community about the development plan by presenting it in brochures, leaflet, news releases and websites to create awareness. The information sending out to the people on the development plan should be simple, straight forward and easy to understand.
Consulting the community will be a two way interaction where the intentions are to make the people well informed and understand about the development plan. Other than that, is to receive feedback and getting rough ideas on what the thing that the community really want to see in their neighbourhood. This stage is also important in advising the people that their input will influenced the decision making process at the end. Rather than the usual meeting where everyone sit behind the tab...

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Community engagement will be made through a variety of different formats to ensure that each social, religious, sex and age group is engaged in the process. Traditional methods of engagement such as leaflets and mind mapping sessions will feature as part of this process where residents and local business can suggest new ideas and give us feedback on the neighbourhood plans findings. Information boards will be erected along the main route in Rusholme to inform passers-by as well as residents in order to engage the widest possible audience that has a relationship with the area. Finally, social media will play a crucial role in informing residents on sites such as Twitter and Facebook where it can access Rusholme community groups, Greater Manchester special interest groups and create an early online presence for the Rusholme Neighbourhood Plan.

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