Effective Practise Expert Chat
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| Welcome & panel introductions
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| Moderator | Good morning! Today’s chat will start at 12:00 and the topic is ‘How can we drive up community engagement - one of the six Hallmarks of effective practice?’ The panel joining me today will be delighted to answer your questions and please let us know how you are engaging with your local community to share this information wider. |
| Moderator | Hello and welcome to today’s chat about community engagement. The panel will now introduce themselves and please let us know your interest. |
| Linda Smith | Hi, I’m Linda Smith and I’m the CDRP Policy Lead in the Home Office, responsible for the recent guidance on effective partnerships and the new regulations. |
| Natalie Williams | I’m Natalie Williams, Communications Manager with the Safer Hastings Partnership. Our work to tackle the fear of crime and engage the community won 3rd prize in this year’s Tilley Awards. |
| Rebecca Handy | Hello, my name is Rebecca Handy. I am currently an A/Sgt working in West Mercia Constabulary. I have previously been a Local Policing Officer (Neighbourhood Officer) and would like to share some experiences about Local Policing and Community engagement. |
| Jane Groves | Hi my name is Jane Groves; I’m manager of Liverpool Community Network (LCN)-the Community Empowerment Network for Liverpool’s Local Strategic Partnership - Liverpool First. LCN is the formal mechanism by which the local Third Sector engages with public agencies to influence local decision-making and comprises 1600 voluntary and community groups in 10 Networks of interest, identity and place. |
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| Partners & Communities Together (PACT) & Youth Engagement
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| Moderator | Rebecca can you tell us more about PACT? Is this something new your force is leading on? |
| Rebecca Handy | PACT is a community engagement tool that allows us to answer the question "How do we give access, influence, interventions and answers to our community?" Although the term PACT is not new, West Mercia has altered the format and emphasis so that it is based more on Partner work. |
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| Kate | We’re currently rolling out PACT across Wigan and one of the priorities that always come up is activities for young people so we’re trying to find ways of getting information out to young people about the activities that are already going on in their area. We’re looking for ways of communicating with them that will get them involved and give them the confidence to influence the activities that are out there. What methods have you used to engage with young people in your areas and how have you marketed information to young people? |
| Natalie Williams | Kate, we run schools competitions twice a year and these have been a staggering success. For the current one, we’ve had almost 500 entries and teachers always come back with positive feedback about how they were really able to engage with their pupils on community safety issues. We ask 5-18 year olds to come up with storyboard ideas about particular topics (e.g. ASB, fire safety, etc) and then we turn the winning entries into films which are broadcast on our community TV network. I’ve now got 12 schools banging down my door to work with us more often. You can find out more about our latest competition at www.saferhastings.co.uk/comp_dec07.htm.
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| Rebecca Handy | We hold dedicated School PACTS, in local high schools, and also face to face consultations at youth clubs etc. We have been mindful no to just engage one area of the youth, and have looked at using PACT at Final Warning clinics etc. In many of the PACT panels, there is a representative of the youths, so there is always consultation. To market info we have used internet sites, teen discos, sports clubs etc
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| Jane Groves | Hi Kate, your local community and voluntary groups are key access points for engaging children and young people. One approach we have used involved meeting with workers from young peoples groups, discussing and agreeing how to consult and then resourcing these groups to go do it and provide us with the results - what you need it trust and this takes a while, with small steps. If you ask groups already working with young people you’re investing in local organisations at the same time.
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| Natalie Williams | Our local authority holds ‘speed dating’ events between teenagers and various local dignitaries, such as the MP, council leader, etc. -- each young person gets three minutes with each person to ask questions
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| Natalie Williams | We’ve also found that our website, www.saferhastings.co.uk, has attracted large numbers of young people. When we first ran our annual survey online, we saw an increase of 13% in the number of 16-24 year olds letting us know what they think about community safety. |
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| Engaging with hostile local press
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| Moderator | Here is one received earlier: When trying to engage your community how do you overcome the problem of a very hostile local newspaper?
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| Natalie Williams | In Hastings, we’ve used a number of ways. One is running our own community TV network, which means we own our own media, so are no longer dependent upon the local newspaper -- we can engage with residents and inform them directly. So we’ve cut out the middleman. Another is that we take out four-page spreads in the local newspaper, over which we retain editorial control, so we’re ‘fighting the enemy from within’! You can watch films from the TV network and see some of our newspaper spreads at www.saferhastings.co.uk/reassurance.htm.
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| Rebecca Handy | When implementing our ‘new’ community engagement tool - Partners And Communities Together (PACT) we experienced some local press being hesitant to publicise and promote the process. To overcome this we invited the media to be actively involved and sit on the panel. That way we gave them the up to date stories and received the press we wanted. |
| Linda Smith | I think that sometimes a ‘hostile’ newspaper still serves a useful purpose in challenging the way issues are seen as being addressed by local partners. I’m not suggesting that they’re always right, but sometimes they do reflect the views of the community, who simply can’t see the difference being made. However, I agree, experience suggests that getting the local media on side and publishing balanced stories is an effective way of engaging them. |
| Natalie Williams | Trust is a big issue though. Our relationship with the local media improved significantly after we launched our community TV network -- we were then seen as an equal player by the local newspaper editor. |
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| I think the problem is that usually a hostile local newspaper is extremely influential, so sometimes they’re not expressing the views of the community, but actually forming the community’s views! |
| Natalie Williams | Our annual surveys consistently reveal that almost half of our residents say reports in the media make them feel unsafe... |
| Jane Groves | I have been in a number of community events where they complained about the negative publicity about them by local press. One of these communities produced their own newsletter to show the success of their area. Don’t let bad press deter you- go out and meet people, talk directly and given the facts the wider community will make up their own minds! |
| Moderator | Local councils certainly take this stance with local newsletters to inform their constituents.
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| Linda Smith | I agree, I think the best partnerships are those with a high visibility in the community, which gives the communities confidence that their problems are being addressed, despite what it says in the paper.
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| Natalie Williams | I agree. We’ve changed the way we hold public meetings -- instead of inviting the public to come to us, where we always get the same small number of disgruntled, vociferous people, we hold our public meetings now in places where the people will be -- our shopping centre, for example. That way, we speak to 300 people in one day about what matters to them. |
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| Whose role is it to engage with local media?
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| DanW | Hi, I’m Dan Walpole, Priority 44 Coordinator, here at the Home Office. Is engagement with local media a task which is held by a single person or Press Office team within your partnerships, or is the responsible for getting messages to the press shared more widely? |
| Natalie Williams | At the Safer Hastings Partnership, it falls to me -- I don’t have a team. However, different partners have their own communications officers and managers, so we keep in touch and make sure we’re on the same page. |
| Rebecca Handy | We have dedicated Media Liaison Officers, who deal with all press releases. We have strict guidelines about speaking to the media without it being arranged through the liaison officer. |
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| Engaging with transient communities
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| ioni | At a recent workshop on community engagement at an East Sussex Community Safety seminar, the issue of engaging transient communities was raised. This was a question that the seminar could not really answer, and I was wondering if the panel had any suggestions? By transient communities I mean those who can move in and out of an area fairly quickly, without engaging with services or being represented by local interest groups and often living in fairly deprived circumstances. |
| Jane Groves | Hi Ioni, one area of Liverpool, Kensington has a large transient population and one of the ways the new Deal for Communities engages is through cultural events - which also serves to bring communities together, helping community cohesion |
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| Rebecca Handy | Hi Ioni, we have dedicated Local Policing Officers, whose role is to engage with all members of their ‘policing area. If a transient community moves in, the LPO visits them and conducts face to face surveys with them to understand their concerns. This is then fed back into the PACT process and partner agencies.
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| CEH | Hi, I’m Charlotte Hetherington and I work for Greenwich Council - Setting up a TV network and running additional community events sound great but as a London Borough we have a very small budget - have any of you reached transient or hard to reach communities through less costly means? |
| Natalie Williams |
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| Moderator | The panel are having some discussion about different groups e.g. involving the more established polish community to engage with newer immigrants who can be hard to crack - any suggestions? |
| Rebecca Handy | We have used Local Council \"Welcome to...\" websites, with a link to the Polish, Romanian, Russian translated site. We have also tried to use more established communities to reach out to the newer communities for us. We have found the churches to be a very useful engagement method and have had congregations of over 500 on some Sundays. |
| TM | In West Sussex we still struggle to engage those ‘hard to reach’ communities. It is a mix of towns and large rural areas, with vast differences in crime levels, and we always tend to get the usual suspects along to community meetings! We have tried the ‘street briefing’ approaches and public events, but I feel we are yet to fully ‘engage’ in an effective manner. |
| Moderator | TM I don’t think there are any quick fixes it is a case of chipping away to try and turn around people’s perceived ideas and having consistent messages across all agencies. |
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Canvassing the wider community for views in an inclusive way
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| Moderator | Another question received earlier which touches on some things addressed above: Given that experience has shown that the use of questionnaires provides an extremely poor response (and is not usually inclusive) and that public meetings rarely bring the public out of their homes to attend, can the panel suggest a way of reaching an all inclusive public for their views? |
| Jane Groves | There are a number of ways to engage with communities including individual residents and voluntary and community groups - you need to be clear on the outcome you want do want a snapshot or continued dialogue? |
| Natalie Williams | We have found that the community TV network really helps us with reaching people we might not normally be able to -- we have screens in McDonalds, GP surgeries, Tesco, the local college, Info Centre, train stations, etc., so we’re really reaching a cross-section of the community...
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| Linda Smith | Have people read the new guidance on effective partnerships, which covers the Hallmark for community engagement?
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| Rebecca Handy | We utilise 5 different engagement methods - public meetings, surgeries, face to face surveys, environmental visual audits (EVAs) and postcards. We also adapt these to suit BME communities, for example holding surgeries at Mosques, Roman Catholic churches when the Polish Community has their service. We also take EVA’s out to villages and ask mothers and children to conduct them on their morning walk to school for example. We really have not held back on trying to reach all areas of the community.
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| Jane Groves | Different people will want to engage with you in different ways there isn’t one way to engage with communities-questionnaires, newsletters, websites, meetings and events. We use a variety of ways to engage with the public sector -from elected representatives at formal meetings, single issue meetings to public events.
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| Moderator | What about people not on the panel what methods have you tried with most success?
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| Kate | Re too many surveys: We’ve had the same experience. When rolling out PACT we’ve found that some areas have never been consulted and others consulted to death by a range of different council departments and agencies. Possibly the most valuable thing about PACT is that we now have a mechanism in place to coordinate any consultation and share the results - we now have proper evaluation mechanisms as well and those areas previously unconsulted are now being engaged. It’s not solved the apathy that exists in some areas but we’re now heading in the right direction. |
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Incorporating public opinion into strategy
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| DanW | A number of the panel members have talked about the engagement events which they have held. I’m interested in the next step - how do you move from what is a presumably wide range of views gathered at those events, to ensuring that local priorities and actions reflect those views? How are these messages fed through the system?
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| Linda Smith | I’d be interested in the answer to DanW’s question too, as it’s a major part of our new requirements for partnership strategic assessments and reflecting community’s priorities
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| Natalie Williams | We have previously had our analyst look at the results and then used them to address particular needs through our four Multi-Agency Tasking Teams (MATTs), which meet monthly and each look at any problems in their specific quarter of the town.
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| Rebecca Handy | Dan, with the PACT process we collate all of the ‘issues’, for example at a public meeting, we write them all on a flip chart. We then ask the public to use a yellow post it note and stick it on the issue that is most important to them. This then gives us an order of priority - top three we call it that enables us to channel our resources and resolve 3 with successful outcomes. Very Simple!
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| Rebecca Handy | Once the top 3 have been decided, a panel of Key stakeholders from the community- elected members, Community Safety Team, School teachers, Neighbourhood Watch, Faithleaders, PC’s CSO’s, local business people to name a few, all decide on the actions to take from the issues, and agree to report back in a month, two months time depending on the area and its demands.
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| TM | Dan, I would say that this collated info should be fed into your JAG, as part of their ongoing tactical work. This should then inform your CDRP group responsible for setting priorities.
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| Natalie Williams | We do something similar to Rebecca. We use a map of the town and colour-coded pins so that people can tell us what crime types/ASB issues concern them and where. This is then analysed and hotspots identified, so that resolving these issues can be prioritised.
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| Tangible benefits as a result of community engagement
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| Moderator | Has anyone been able to demonstrate how community engagement has resulted in a reduction in crime and increased community safety?
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| Natalie Williams | Our community engagement work has led to a significant increase in feelings of safety among residents. This, in turn, stimulates the evening economy. Also, evaluation of community TV networks across the UK by an independent company has show 60% act on what they see, for example, there was a massive rise in Avon |
| Rebecca Handy | When we started this process, the first few meetings were very hostile towards the police and partners. Now the number of members of community engaging with us in all methods has increased dramatically, and at one particular meeting, over 250 members of the public attend monthly meetings, PACT has taken over all other engagement meetings. I do not have statistics to quote figures, however the feedback from the public is very positive about the process.
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| Jane Groves | We run a ‘cleaner safer greener’ grants programme for our CDRP linked to the neighbourhood element of the Local Area Agreement - here local voluntary and community groups apply for up to £5,000 to tackle ‘crime and grime’ issues in their local area. One of these projects to tackle anti-social behaviour, under age drinking through the installation of CCTV has resulted in zero calls to the Police. To back up this preventative work the police and local RSL are supporting extra detached youth work.
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| Natalie Williams | An example from |
| andrea | In East Riding we are developing Neighbourhood Action Teams (NATs). Our latest project is to develop ‘Operation Community Challenge’ The project is designed to target Criminal damage hotspots by working in partnership with our Environmental Services Section, Volunteers from the NAT’s, Town Councils, Police, partners in the community. the operation is on one morning or afternoon where everyone comes together to clean up, remove graffiti, litter pick mend street furniture that has been identified from visual audits. Yesterday was our first one and it was successful.
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| Moderator | These kinds of projects sound great and are just the kind of examples we are looking for to share with the wider community safety practitioner network. The Effective Practice & Communication Team in the Home Office is developing the Effective Practice Database to do just that and it should be live in the next few weeks.
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| Moderator | Projects that use problem solving methods to reduce crime or the fear of crime and are led by any agencies within CDRPs can also be entered for the 2008 Tilley Awards. All information will be released on 7th January under ‘Awards’ on the Crime Reduction Website. The first prize is £10,000. |
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| Linda Smith | Easier to explain than to type. However, we have suggested in our guidance that partners try to align or simplify their approach to community consultation, so that you don’t get the police authority, local authority, the police, the LCJB and everyone else bombarding the public with different questions about the same thing.
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| Jane Groves | I would say that joined up engagement is consultation with action and feedback - where engagement is a process rather than a one-off
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| Linda Smith | What we’re trying to ensure is that local partners join up their work and not waste time and money on producing 5 different surveys or events about the same thing. Otherwise, you risk inducing apathy about always being asked and never seeing the results. We’re keen that partners understand the importance of being seen to meet community expectations, not just asking about them.
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| Natalie Williams | It’s the same with public meetings -- if everyone holds their own, then no wonder there’s low attendance -- but if you all join together, then it demonstrates partnership working as well as encouraging the public to come along.
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| Proto | This is the kind of thing that CDRPs should be co-ordinating. After all, they were set up to bring local partners together.
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| TM | Yes, indeed! We are trialling joint CDRP and SPA public consultations, which seem to be better attended and more informative for residents.
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| Natalie Williams | Yes we’ve been working with SPA (Sussex Police Authority) too to join up meetings over the last year, especially when we hold them ‘out and about’.
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| Jane Groves | What about it being informative for the CDRP and the SPA? Effective engagement is 2 way, it’s about the public agencies listening to residents as well as you talking to them.
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| Natalie Williams | It is two-way in |
| Linda Smith | Yes, that’s exactly what we expect to see happening in partnerships
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| Jane Groves | Liverpool’s LSP is attempting to co-ordinate its engagement through the development of a Community Engagement Strategy (the Your Community Matters are a part of this). We are leading on the development of this Strategy for our LSP and the partners agree there is a need to ensure we are not duplicating or leaving gaps. You’re quite correct about the apathy; however this isn’t just about the number of consultations it’s also about the quality and whether anything happens when people have contributed their time, experience and expertise.
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| Linda Smith | There’s a really important link between the work of the LSP and CDRP on community engagement. After all, the new best value duty to consult and involve affects all BV authorities (other than police authorities) and both partnerships need to align their work effectively. |
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| Engagement versus consultation
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| Probsol | An open question for any panel members. I am never clear as to what is described as engagement and consultation. My understanding of engagement is participation in activity. Is there an opinion on consultation/engagement?
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| Jane Groves | Hi, I would say that engagement is a collective term that includes information dissemination (which is non-participative), representation in meetings, consultation through to commissioning, delivery and scrutiny of services.
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| Linda Smith | We’ve introduced regulations for both consultation and participation, recognising that there is a clear difference between asking people what they think is important and then asking them to support efforts to change |
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| Community TV & CDRP websites
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| AYLESBURY | Natalie, I would be interested to hear more about community TV - what area/ organisation do you work in? Matthew |
| Natalie Williams | Matthew, I work for the Safer Hastings Partnership -- happy to answer any questions on community TV. You can also watch it at www.saferhastings.co.uk/shp_tv.htm. |
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| Kate | Re Safer Hastings. Thanks for the link - it looks good. We’ve just launched our own site www.saferwigan.org. We’ve struggled to get content and photos for the site so it’s always good to see other examples that are more established. How have you promoted your site? |
| Natalie Williams | Hi Kate, I’ve promoted it via partners’ websites, internal comms and newsletters. We also sent 10,000 postcards to households in Hastings that a wonderful piece of software told us are most likely to both be online and read flyers that come through the door -- that was to encourage people to fill in our survey online. I also put all schools competition winners’ entries on the website, all our latest news, and always point people to it at every available opportunity! The web address goes on everything we produce. |
| Natalie Williams | We also have a Media Player on our website so visitors can view films from our community TV network. I try to make the website the first port of call for everything we do. |
| Probsol | In your experiences what works - meetings, survey, mailshots, other? |
| Natalie Williams | A saturation policy -- use everything you can! |
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| Linda Smith | Use what works and what you can, there’s not one right answer, but make sure you target the right areas |
| Rebecca Handy | It needs to be tailored for the community. Look at who lives there, what crime levels there are, what facilities there are - and use a mixture to supplement each other. The trick is don’t be prescribed - be adventurous! |
| Rebecca Handy | If anyone would like to contact me to further discuss this - rebecca.handy@westmercia.pnn.police.uk |
| Natalie Williams | You can contact me after this chat on nwilliams@hastings.gov.uk or 01424 451843. |
| Jane Groves | Depends on your target audience and the timescale but generally use as many different methods as possible, be open and inclusive, be clear about what will happen next and always always do what you have committed to do. |
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| Jane Groves | If anyone wants any further information about our engagement work in communities and our partnership with public agencies with my contact details are, Jane Groves, LCVS, 14 Castle Street, Liverpool, L2 0NJ. 0151 236 7728. Jane.Groves.groves@lcvs.org.uk check out our website www.liverpool-community.org.uk
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| Moderator | Thanks everyone for taking part. An edited transcript will be emailed to everyone who logged on and all the questions and answers will be clear! We are holding another chat on 12th December 12-2pm about reducing re-offending so remember to make a note of your username and password and log back on on the 12th.
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Last update: Friday, December 14, 2007