Community engagement: reflecting on what works and looking to the future

Our Senior Engagement Officer, Melissa Lacide, knows a thing or two about engaging with communities in the places where they live.

Here she discusses how some of the fundamentals of engagement reflect the themes in our Quality of Life Framework and contemplates how things are looking for the future of community engagement. 

Over the last 20 years of practising community engagement (in one shape or another!) I have learned a lot from a range of inspiring and talented people, all invested in the communities in which they live, work, study and socialise.

Anyone reading this knows that working with residents and communities makes sense and will deliver better outcomes for all. 

And this thinking and practice is no different at the Quality of Life Foundation. 

In fact, a number of the community engagement ‘essentials’ I have picked up over the years clearly link to some of the themes within our Quality of Life Framework. 

Standing the test of time

There are engagement approaches and must-haves that are vital to enabling opportunities to participate because they value building trust, local networks and positive connections. These are integral in putting health and wellbeing at the centre of improving our homes and neighbourhoods.

Some community engagement approaches have stood the test of time quite simply because they work at a local level and are linked to the quality of life theme of control – a sense of which we know is good for people’s health and wellbeing. Some examples of these include:

  1. Asset based community development, which focuses on handing over control to communities and also enabling them. By tapping into local people, buildings, spaces and infrastructure, the approach builds on and mobilises these to come together to realise potential and develop strengths.
  2. Participatory design, which is a creative process that involves stakeholders where things are done equally with them and learning can be captured in order to deliver change. Despite becoming buzzwords and used interchangeably, we mustn’t forget about the value of practising co-creation (collaboratively designing together), co-design (the process of involving others) and co-production (sharing power, ideas and knowledge to reach an outcome).

There are also some engagement essentials that are invaluable to places and relate back to our quality of life theme of community, another piece of the puzzle in enabling people’s health and wellbeing. These include:

  1. Community activists and champions (such as residents and community groups) who are often trusted with networks that can be tapped into. They often work with others to bring positive changes locally and are able to promote things in their community.
  2. Community anchors (such as businesses, housing associations, voluntary and community sector organisations) that reach a wide range of people. They are invested in places long term, often providing solutions to local issues, support and resources.
  3. Narratives and stories, which provide a great insight into personal and lived experience of an issue and a place. This is crucial to understanding the past, what the local needs are at present, and for embedding future changes in communities. 

The future of community engagement: taking back control

With growing issues around the cost of living and housing crises, plus more focus on the value of resident voices and community engagement, what does this all mean at a local and national policy level?  

Casting our minds back to the Levelling Up White Paper, there is support at the national level for community ownership and social infrastructure, which is great for our sense of control and community belonging, as well as our health and wellbeing. 

However, in practical and more local terms, many community groups and organisations are not defining this as ‘levelling up’. 

Rather, they’re collaboratively getting on with doing things, creating investment opportunities for themselves, and making their own rules to make a difference, shifting power dynamics and influence for how decisions are made, and inclusively meeting their local needs. 

Taking back control enables things to become tangible – be it delivering local services, reviving derelict high streets, employing and training local people, or resourcing their projects through self-funding and volunteers – where people can be active participants in their community rather than passive consultees. 

Asking the right questions

As we see new guides, policies and standards published, aimed at shaping our engagement practices for a better quality of life in housing and neighbourhoods, there are some important questions to ponder on with a focus on quality of life in communities.

Is the engagement process: 

  • providing opportunities to pilot and test activities and programmes?
  • empowering people to adapt and respond to issues, support decision-making, and put plans in place to address local challenges? 
  • enabling people to share information and learning, embed, monitor and evaluate accountability measures, and provide a best practice evidence base?

Asking the right questions will lead us back to better practice – with a quality of life lens on – guiding us to: 

  • have empathy in the engagement that we’re doing by understanding things from the perspectives of others
  • be inclusive and reflective throughout the engagement process by putting a (re)focus on people and communities 
  • re-evaluate and re-define who is actually ‘holding the pen’ so we can share and fairly distribute who has control and power

Read more about good practice in community engagement in our Inclusive Engagement Toolkit