Week 5

Types of public participation and community engagement

Boudjelas (2009) and Aslin and Brown (2004) outline levels of community engagement. For example, Boudjelas identified 5 levels of engagement from passive participation (e.g. the receipt of information), through to community-lead implementation (Boudjelas 2009, pp102-103).

Heather Aslin is a social scientist and University Fellow at Charles Darwin University and researcher at the Commonwealth Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Alsin and Brown discuss the difference between consultation, participation and engagement (Alsin and Brown 2004; p 5). They also emphasise that successful participation involves thought and planning about both goals and processes supporting engagement.

Read relevant sections of these two resources and develop a framework for level of engagement, and a definition of, or goal for, successful engagement. You may want to note the time frames involved in successfully achieving a particular level of engagement.

 

• Aslin H.J. and Brown V.A. (2004) Towards whole of community engagement: A
  practical toolkit Murray-Darling Basin Commission, Canberra. Accessed in July
  2010 at http://publications.mdbc.gov.au/view.php?view=156
  Note: We recommend that you download this document, as it is a very useful
  resource for you as a community engagement for natural resources management practitioner, and will assist in future decision making and project planning, both during this semester and later in your practice.

• Boudjelas S. (2009) Public participation in invasive species management. In Clout
  M.N. and Williams P.A. (eds) Invasive species management: a handbook of
  principles and techniques, pp 93-107, Oxford Biology

Education as an engagement tool

Ruth Wallace is Director of Social Partnership in Learning Research Consortium (SPIL) and Director of The Northern Institute at Charles Darwin University, with particular interests related to undertaking engaged research that improves outcomes for stakeholders in regional and remote Australia.

Her article (Wallace (in press)) draws a link between traditional social structures and practices for biosecurity and natural resources use and management, government imperatives for complex activities such as biosecurity management, using education.

1. Can you describe Ruth’s argument?

2. What are the implicit and explicit goals of engagement in this article?

3. How might this argument and goals be specifically relevant to your practice? Provide examples if you can.

4. If you are particularly interested in this topic, you may also want to read
Gelade et al. (2006).

• Wallace R. (in press) Social partnerships in learning: engaging local, regional and
  national partners in plant biosecurity management. In Falk I., Ndoen M.L. and
  Wallace R. (eds) Managing biosecurity across borders, pp 121-142, Springer.
  
  Further reading:
  Gelade S., Stehlik T. and Willis P. (2006). Learning collaborations between ACE
  and vocational education and training providers: good practice partnerships.
  NCVER, Adelaide. Accessed July 2010
  

Engagement as community development and empowerment

You will have already been introduced to David Fetterman in the ENV401 reading guide. This article advocates for engagement to actually make a positive change to that community. Refer to http://www.davidfetterman.com/ for more
information.

Fetterman (1994) specifically addresses a youth health issues, but will help you in framing objectives for your community engagement practice.

You may also want to refer to the W.C. Kellogg Foundation, a highly respected private American Foundation for social science research, policy and action for education, which Fetterman refers to.

1. Having read Fetterman, and the related resources, what do you see as the goal of community engagement?

 

 

• Fetterman D.M. (1994). Empowerment Evaluation. American Journal of
  Evaluation 15: 1-15.