Community Engagement and Involvement James Woodhouse Youth Education Manager RNLI

Background in Education + Football Introduction Qualified teacher Background in Education + Football Previously worked for Middlesbrough + Coventry City FC Started with the RNLI in May 2017 Quick background talk about my previous experiences and how I got into this position.

The role of a Youth Education Manager within the RNLI What is the role of the Education Manager Delivery of Youth Education messages to Under 18 within the Community either through our volunteers or through partnerships We do Prevention messaging as well as engagement with the Charity. Making sure we cultivate the next generation of supporter -Recruit a solid Education Volunteer workforce Induction, Safeguarding and on-going training for all volunteers Build and maintain local partnerships who help us in delivery of key safety messages. Delivering training to both external partnership and internal partners (providing training to F2F and LGs) Network in the local community to develop new partnership to delivery RNLI messages Working as support for Lifeboat Stations Visits teams Act as an Education specialist for all of wider RNLI Support other colleagues in RNLI to help them meet their targets e.g Mayday

Discuss ways to ‘sell’ the message in a positive and proactive way Aims of session Understand how to engage and create positive partnerships in your local community Discuss ways to ‘sell’ the message in a positive and proactive way Who should and shouldn’t you talk to? Just a quick overview of the aims. Don’t go into too much detail, that will come later. Revisit this slide at the end to ensure we have covered our aims.

Partnerships and relationships What is the main purpose? Get across our water safety messages. Stop people from drowning. Spread our messages as wide as possible. Keep this in mind, it is the whole reason we are in this environment. So, how can forming a partnership help us get this message across? Be able to reach a further and wider audience. Engage with people that on our own we wouldn’t be able to. Spread the workload. The main purpose of forming or maintaining a partnership is to get across our water safety messages, stop people from drowning, spread our messages as wide as possible etc.

Who can you engage with? Working with a partner, write down who you think you can engage with (think local and national). List as many as possible and we will discuss the results and write them below. Write down the answers as they come in on the next slide, get as many as possible. Try and discuss them individually as they come in rather than waiting until the end to discuss them all. This slide will take about 15 minutes.

Who can you engage with? Write down the answers as they come in, get as many as possible. Try and discuss them individually as they come in rather than waiting until the end to discuss them all. This slide will take about 15 minutes.

Now we know who to engage with, how do we engage with them Now we know who to engage with, how do we engage with them? How do we sell the message? Again, take a couple of minutes to discuss with your partner the best way to engage with these partners. Do different organisations require a different relationship? Initial phone call, face to face meeting (so important), discuss ways to work together (who gets what out of it, who takes the lead etc). Different partners need different types of engagements.. Schools are notoriously difficult to get constant dialogue with, how do you get around that? No partnership is too small, sometimes the smallest ones lead to the biggest changes! This will hopefully promote a bit of discussion around the best ways to engage with partners. Make sure you promote yourself and big yourself up, use the badge as your tool! Be proud of your message, have the confidence to be able to take part in those discussions, research the partner before you talk to them, learn a little bit about their wider message, this promotes a conversation and shows you are interested in them. Sell your message! Share resources. No partnership is too small, sometimes the smallest ones lead to the biggest opportunities.

RNLI partnerships RLSS/Swim Safe/ASA & other likeminded organisations Councils Schools (including cluster schools) Scouts, cubs, guides groups etc Emergency services Local and national governments Canals & Rivers Trust Pubs & clubs Universities Activity centres Volunteers are key! They are the face of our organisations, they go out and do the groundwork. Ensure you keep them in the loop and keep your ear on the ground.

Problems we face Lack of time – I see this particularly with schools Money – even though we are a charity and don’t ask for donations, some people feel under pressure to give something and this puts them off. Crossed waters – some people prefer to go out alone and don’t want to form partnerships with someone they feel may be stealing their thunder. But remember our key message, we are all on the same page and working together means we get there faster.

Does it make the boat go faster? Explain the meaning behind this… be careful to create partnerships that are going to be purposeful. Don’t waste time on partnerships that take up a lot of time and resources with very few positive outcomes. Prioritise your partnerships to ensure that you are always making the boat go faster, that you are achieving the aims that you have set out to achieve and not treading water.

What tools do we have to engage the community? Make a list of the community engagement tools that we have available Make a list of all the available resources that we have available to us to be able to engage with the community.

Current resources

Current projects

Questions? Please remember to shout about what you are doing, you are all doing amazing things but if we don’t know about it we can’t spread the message further!