COMMUNICATING
AND ENGAGING
Engagement is at the heart of the CCP process. It helps build strong relationships and nourish the collective vision of your community. Are you looking for ways to engage your community and facilitate the participation of as many members or citizens as possible? This section offers key elements, as well as tools and tips to help you prepare your activities.
Engagement and participation : two related concepts
Community engagement
Community engagement means taking action together to achieve a collective goal. In the context of CCP, the goal is clear: to create a community plan together, then implement it.
Engagement is at the heart of the CCP process. Through engagement activities, you strengthen connections, identify what is important for your future, and choose the paths to follow to achieve your dreams.
Engagement activities invite the citizens of your First Nation to participate in the planning process.
Public participation
Public participation takes several forms and involves people to varying degrees :
- People are simply informed of the process, without opportunity to provide feedback.
- One-way communication.
- Commonly used tools include: newsletters, posters, radio ads, and websites.
- Community members are invited to share their opinions and informed of the choices made in their name.
- Two-way communication (feedback is possible).
- Commonly used tools include: feedback forms, printed, or digital surveys.
- Community members' expectations and concerns and integrated into the decision-making process.
- Two-way communication (members are informed of how their ideas are taken into account).
- Commonly used tools include: interviews, small group discussions, family meetings, community gatherings.
- Work is being done in partnership with the community.
- Two-way communication (ideas shared by the community are used to make choices).
- Commonly used tools include: participatory budgets, referenda, working groups, CCP committees.
- Community choices are implemented and guide development.
- Two-way communication (shared decision-making).
- Commonly used tools include: CCP, youth and/or elder councils.
Inspired by IAP2’s Spectrum of Public Participation: https://www.iap2.org/page/SpectrumEvolution
As illustrated, each higher degree of participation includes the previous ones. In other words, for people to decide, they need to be informed, consulted and involved. Collaboration is essential.
As the level of participation increases, people are invited to share their opinions and ideas. They increasingly influence decisions and there is a dialogue within the community.
CCP represents the highest level of participation: the community decides on the plan, the Council adopts it and commits to carrying it out.
The planning team is responsible for communicating and carrying out the community engagement activities with citizens. The activities proposed by the planning team must help achieve the common goal: to create a community plan through the participation of as many members or citizens as possible.
Meeting people where they are
How do you get as many citizens or members involved in planning as possible? In the words of Listuguj CCP mentor Dawn Germain-Metallic: “You have to meet people where they are.”
It took a lot of time and commitment on the part of our team, but when you're dedicated and when your dedication is consistent, you begin to know your community better, and the better you know it, the more people open up to you and include you in their circle [...] I'd say communication is key, and the clearer and more consistent your message, the more your community members will trust you.
To reach people, you first have to know who they are and where they are. Understanding more about the groups that make up your community will help you tailor your activities to their realities and increase the likelihood of participation.
We recommend completing the following three exercises with your planning team.
Why do them as a team? To embody the core values of the CCP: using a strength-based approach, bringing together multiple perspectives, and putting the community at the centre of the process.
We are grateful to our colleagues at the Nishnawbe Aski Development Fund for creating these tools, as part of their CCP Toolkit.
What groups need to be included?
This tool will help you identify the main groups within your community: families, Elders, children, adolescents, young adults aged 18 to 25, elected officials, managers, committees, local organizations, etc. Once you know who makes up your community, it becomes easier to find effective ways to reach them.
Group preferences
This tool will help you reflect on the best ways to reach and communicate with each group, based on their needs and expectations.
Overview of communication methods and community calendar
This tool will help you identify your community’s strengths in communications. Once you have a clear picture of what already exists, you’ll be able to develop a game plan to create and/or adapt communications and reach all groups in your community. With this tool, you can be confident that no one will be left out!
Once you’ve completed these tools, we suggest you test your ideas with a small sample of your population. This will help you validate your understanding of your community’s diversity and expectations.
Here is an example of a quick survey to check people’s communication preferences. Feel free to modify and use it with your favourite survey creation application (e.g., SurveyMonkey, Google Forms, MS Forms, etc.).
Including everyone in engagement activities
Once you have a good understanding of the groups that make up your community, and how they prefer to be reached, we invite you to take the time to think inclusively about the activities you plan to offer.
What would make it easier for people to participate?
What does your community need in terms of communications and engagement?
Over time, many people have shared with us why it was difficult for them to participate, and what we could do to help them. Listed below are common obstacles faced by CCP Coordinators, and the solutions they developed to overcome them.
Challenges
Solutions
Parents have no one to look after their children during the meeting.
Offer a childcare service, in collaboration with the childcare centre or youth centre. Make spaces welcoming for children, so everyone can participate.
Elders would prefer to speak in their language, but they are afraid of not being understood.
Offer a language interpretation service, in collaboration with the language committee, the cultural department, or the language immersion program.
Some people have difficulty concentrating during activities, especially in the evening.
Respect people’s physical needs: plan breaks, time to refocus, snacks and drinks, etc. Adjust the pace and schedule to the time of day. Plan games and time to relax.
Organize individual or small group activities. Offer activities by family or online, such as surveys or quizzes. Integrate activities that keep people’s hands busy (crafts, outdoor activities, collective kitchen, etc.).
Some people don’t like confrontation and have a hard time with difficult discussions.
Begin the activity by setting collective norms: what do people need to feel at ease with each other?
Some people live outside the community and feel excluded because they cannot participate when the activities are only offered in person.
Facilitate carpooling or organize bus transportation, in collaboration with public works. Offer transportation to Elders. Organize activities in people’s living environments (e.g., at school, at the Elders’ lodge, at the youth centre, etc.).
Planning communications and engagement
The communications and engagement plan is a tool to guide your work. It will help you stay focused through the many things to be done and choose the moments to collaborate with other teams. With a plan, your goals will remain clear, and you will know what information to collect, at each stage of the process.
A good plan answers the following questions :
- What are your objectives?
- Why are you doing this activity?
- For what part of the CCP is it useful?
- What data will you collect and how will it be used?
- What activities and means of communication will help you achieve your objectives?
- Who are the target audiences for each activity?
- What are the key messages for each activity?
- At what time of year and how often will the activity be carried out?
- Who is responsible for each activity?
- What materials and budget do you need for each activity?
Finding the right pace
Some teams plan seasonally to better adapt engagement activities to the pace and rhythms of their community.
Example of a seasonal work plan, created by Tl’esqox’s PCG team (Tŝilhqot’in Nation)
Fall
Carry out activities focused on recruiting or building the CCP team, introducing the process to the community, and establishing the plan for winter and spring.
Winter
Organize community engagement activities to bring the community together (don’t forget members who live outside the community!). Organize visits to complete surveys and/or interviews with individuals and families. Produce annual reports.
Spring
Propose community engagement activities inside or outside the territory, based on seasonal cultural activities (e.g., spring food or medicine harvesting).
Summer
Develop deliverables associated with community engagement activities on the territory and present them to the community at a cultural gathering. Work on drafting the plan and creating opportunities for the to validate the plan.
Source: Tl’esqox CCP Team (Tŝilhqot’in Nation)
Adapted from : http://www.comprehensivecommunityplanning.org/uploads/8/2/0/5/8205408/ccp_workshop_-_work_planning.pdf
Engagement and communications :
ongoing learning
Working on community engagement and maintaining dialogue with your community means being ready to learn continuously and adapt to the people with whom you are in contact. The good news is that the best way to learn is through practice. Each engagement or communication activity is an opportunity to learn, add new tools to your toolkit, and to be better prepared for the next activity.
We encourage you to build on your strengths, both individual and collective. If necessary, take the time to participate in training or to be supported by a mentor. This will help you maintain a curious, flexible and open approach.
Several organizations have compiled their engagement knowledge in guides and toolkits. Here are some of our favourites to get you started, as well as some training courses recommended by CCP coordinators in the region.
We invite you to share your favourite training tools, using the form below. It will help inspire your colleagues from other First Nations!
- CCP: the basics – FNQLSDI
- Community engagement for planning teams – FNQLSDI
- Community mobilization toolkit – FNQLHSSC
- Data collection and analysis in CCP – FNQLSDI
- Data use, management and protection – FNQLHSSC
- Drafting funding applications – FNHRDCQ
- Drafting funding applications – FNQLEDC
- Facilitation – Winnipeg Transition Centre
- Governance and leadership – First Nations Executive Education
- Towards lateral kindness – Wanda Gabriel Consulting
- Trauma-informed approach for organizations – Goodleaf Consulting
- Trauma-informed approach for organizations – TIONHNHÍ:IO
- Principles of OCAP® – FNIGC