Welcome to the second edition of The Involve Insight, your go-to resource for insights, strategies, facilitation skills and tools to enhance public engagement in decision making and participatory democracy.
Since starting at Involve last year as the Engagement Lead focusing on training, I've been inspired to see just how many people and organisations are getting serious about working with communities in order to make better decisions.
In this edition we take things back to basics by exploring what public engagement in decision making actually is, we share a useful method for designing structured conversations, explore how a London borough council have supercharged their engagement efforts and we share opportunities to build internal capacity in public engagement and enhance facilitation skills.
Let’s dive in…
The Art of Focused Conversation
The art of designing and asking great questions is a fundamental skill of any good facilitator and is especially important in all forms of public engagement in decision making.
Too many times we see an engagement process or activity start with a question such as “so, what do we all think about that…” and then people struggle to answer as it’s actually a really big question. Or you fall into the trap of getting emotive or strongly held — and sometimes divisive — opinions, which can polarise the participants, and inhibit others from participating.
The Art of Focused Conversation method from the Institute of Cultural Affairs is a globally recognised method for designing structured conversations using a four stage structure to lead to improved decision making, drawing on known facts, opinions, intuition and reason to surface insights that lead to better decisions.
The method is more commonly known as the ORID method. Below we outline the overarching model. In the ICA model it suggests designing and asking questions in four stages:
Objective questions - getting to the known facts, ensuring all participants have the same level of knowledge and understanding, outlining the ‘what’ the group is there to discuss.
E.g. - What words, phrases, and images stood out today? What have been some of the major events this year? What major projects did we work on?
Reflective questions - understanding individual and personal perspectives, opinions, and feelings, the ‘so what’ matters.
E.g. - What were the high points? What were the low points? Where did we struggle?
Interpretive questions - drawing out meaning, implications, consequences and values, continuing the ‘so what’ harvesting of thinking.
E.g. - What did we learn? What new vantage point do we now have? What has had the most significant impact?
Decisional questions - making better informed choices and decisions, based on gathering all of the data from the previous three levels of questioning, the ‘now what’ needs to happen moving forwards.
E.g. - What do we now need to do differently? What are our priorities now? What are our immediate next steps?
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Back to basics: what exactly is deliberative public engagement?
If you’re new here, you might be wondering what deliberation actually means in the context of public engagement and decision making. Well, let’s break it down…
Deliberation is an approach to decision making that allows participants to consider relevant information from multiple points of view. This approach enables participants to discuss the issues and options and to develop their thinking together before coming to a view, taking into account the values, needs and fears that inform people’s opinions. Deliberation moves us from public opinion to public judgement.
For a public engagement process or intervention to be deliberative it must involve:
Discussion between participants at interactive events, workshops or meetings, including through online technologies.
Working with people from all walks of life and a range of information sources, including information, evidence and views from people with different perspectives, backgrounds, and interests.
A clear task or purpose, related to influencing a specific decision, policy, service, project or programme.
Currently there are three forms of deliberative public engagement in the UK:
Deliberative dialogue such as national dialogues on science and technology that take place through the UK government’s flagship engagement programme, Sciencewise
All of these three forms of deliberative public engagement overlap, each may be appropriate in different circumstances and contexts, and any single process may involve more than one type of activity.
And, deliberative public engagement in decision making can be used across all levels of government.. It can be used across all types of services, delivered by public, private or voluntary sectors, and across the spectrum of public participation (IAP2), to consult, involve, collaborate or empower people.
Help Us Shape Involve’s Training – We Want to Hear from You!
At Involve, we’re always looking to improve the way we support facilitators and public engagement professionals. That’s why we’re asking for your input! Whether it’s the best time for training to take place, specific facilitation challenges you might be struggling with, or any burning questions you want answered, we want to know!
Your insights will help us create a training offer that meets your needs. Take a moment to share your thoughts by filling out our quick Google Form here. It only takes a few minutes, and your feedback will help us design training that works for you.
How a London borough council supercharged their engagement efforts
Involve was recently approached by a London borough council to discuss how they could improve public engagement in decision making across different council departments.
The council told us they had an underdeveloped approach to engagement, and felt their current methods -such as newsletters, statutory consultations and focus groups - were old fashioned, and failed to capture the true opinions of their residents.
They also shared that a lot of their existing engagement was currently outsourced to external agencies and the voluntary sector. There was a desire to bring things back in-house and build the Council's internal capability and capacity to design and deliver effective public engagement.
Working with the council, we developed a public engagement training programme that would develop engagement skills, and build their capacity, capability, and — importantly — confidence in designing and delivering effective public engagement as part of their decision making.
The training was designed and delivered to provide theory and practical models for public engagement, the difference between dialogue and deliberation, and practical skills for designing and delivering public engagement. The training was grounded in case studies and interactive exercises and activities. All of this together meant that the training was delivered to meet the council’s internal context and needs.
We also discussed Facilitation Skills training to further support the council teams in delivering public engagement processes, to be delivered at a later date.
Here what some of the training attendees had to say:
“Thoroughly enjoyable and was really insightful with the amount of information shared by the team. They were engaged and personable and really brought the group together. The exercises were well planned and helped the group think about our collective approach to engagement and encouraging collaboration across council teams. Would definitely recommend the training to champion and support best practice”
- London Borough Council team leader.
“Really well delivered training. Interactive, engaging and well explained. I’ve come away having learnt a lot about how to do participation properly and will be looking to embed the practice in my work moving forwards”.
- London Borough Council team member.
“It was nice being able to be creative and collaborative with different people across the organisation. I feel very inspired and motivated to use today’s learnings in everyday practice”.
At Involve, we see how organisations and governments at all levels are increasingly recognising the transformative power of effective, inclusive public engagement that empowers people to have a greater say in the decisions that affect their lives. Not only does it foster trust between decision-makers and communities, but it also leads to more practical, grounded solutions that are likely to succeed on the ground.
That’s why we offer our Public Engagement Training for organisations and institutions — a programme designed to give you and your team the tools, methods, approaches and confidence needed for meaningful, inclusive public engagement in decision making.
Take a look at what we have coming up below:
Public Engagement Training
Join us for our Public Engagement Training to build your awareness of public engagement in decision making: what it is, why it is important and how to develop your public engagement brief! Taking place:
Our Facilitating Public Engagement Training is for leaders, public engagement officers, and facilitators working in public engagement looking to learn more about core facilitation principles, skills, tools and techniques in the public engagement space. Taking place:
That's it for the Insight for this edition. If you would like to more about any of the Involve training, or have a training related question, or something you would like to share about our training please email Gary at gary@involve.org.uk
Thanks!
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