Part 1: Develop an effective community engagement plan
Read the case scenario below then perform the tasks that follow:
A social housing agent has received funding to develop a community housing project targeting women with young children who are suffering domestic violence. The plan outlines a two-year time frame with the objective of building six new units.
You are a community services worker developing community engagement strategies to present to the Board for approval. This community engagement provides opportunities for strengthening relationships with the community and provides for better decision making by ensuring that decisions are made on the basis of current, reliable and valid information from the community, concerning their needs, values and aspirations.
It contributes to good community relationships, builds community capacity and raises the quality of representative democracy. As a platform for the community to have their voices heard, their views considered and acknowledged, it works to make people feel that they have some control over what happens and are, at least in some part, as a group, self-determining.
You also need to set up an evaluation process for the program and are required to document the outcomes.
Required:
Develop and document an engagement plan. It will be necessary, as part of the planning process, to gather and analyse data relevant to the engagement process.
You can use the Engagement Plan template in Appendix 1.
The engagement plan must include the following information:
1.form of engagement – dates, times, places, activities
2.community group/s to be involved
3.reasons for the engagement
4.stakeholders to be involved
5.applicable budget
6.possible barriers to participation and methods of overcoming them
7.engagement tools and methods to be used
8.purpose and scope of the engagement
9.relevant stakeholders and individuals who should be involved in the engagement process
10.level of impact that stakeholders will have regarding decisions
11.level of public participation required
12.roles and responsibilities of personnel involved in the plan
13.time frames for the various activities
14.resources required to implement the plan
15.types of relationships to be built
16.expected outcomes
17.criteria for measuring success and evaluating outcomes
18.evaluation mechanisms
Email the draft engagement plan to management and community representatives for feedback. Incorporate any relevant feedback into the plan and present it for endorsement/approval.
The text of the email should be in grammatically correct English, written in an appropriate (polite, business-like) style.
It should provide a brief overview of the community engagement plan, introduce and summarise the contents of the attachment, and seek their feedback and approval to move forward with the project.
Attach the Community Engagement Plan to the email.
Note:
Please login to your Lead college email account, create an email as per assessment requirements. Once you have completed your email please take a screenshot and add your screenshot to this section of your assessment booklet.
Part 2: Implement the engagement plan
Before implementing the plan:
1.Identify the stakeholders who should participate
2.Identify and address the issues of disengaged stakeholders
3.Organise the participation activity or events according to the plan
4.Promote the activities/events by providing timely information to stakeholders and using a range of communication methods – verbally, by letter or email, community announcements notices, social media posts, blogs, SMS etc.
Part 3: Role play
For this task you are required to participate in role plays with your classmates, playing the part of community services worker during three different group discussions. You should identify all groups and individuals within the community what will be affected or have an interest in the decision being made. Not all stakeholders will need to be engaged at the same level, so you will need to identify their needs to determine what engagement activities might be required and at which stage of the project.
Remember to prepare minimum 10 PowerPoint Presentation slides to support your facilitation sessions and get evaluation form ready to gather participant’s feedback for your report in Part 5.
Part 4: Conduct an evaluation of the participation activities
When the event is over conduct, in consultation with appropriate personnel, a review and evaluation to determine whether the participation activities were successful or need to be improved in future engagement activities. Document and file the results of the evaluation.
Part 5: Evaluate and review the outcomes and effectiveness of the participation plan
1.When the event is over, conduct in, consultation with appropriate personnel, a review and evaluation to determine whether the participation activities were successful or need to be improved in future engagement activities. Document and file the results of the evaluation. Identify the objectives outlined in the plan – the expected or desired outcomes and map them against the actual outcomes to determine how successful the engagement process was. Document the results and use the documented results plus any feedback from participants to contribute to the evaluation.
2.For each of the three group discussions that were facilitated, write a report that can be distributed to the relevant stakeholders. Information contained in the report will relate to the structure of the activities/events, costs, participants, outputs and outcomes. Determine whether the objectives of the plan were achieved or, if they were not, why they were not achieved.
