The Standards for Community Engagement Community Learning and Development Education, Learning And Leisure Service

Defining Community Engagement “Community engagement is the process of involving communities in the development and management of services such as health, education and housing. It may also involve other issues which concern us all or it may be about tackling the problems of a neighbourhood, such as crime, drug misuse or lack of play facilities for children” Scottish Regeneration Centre

Heart of policy “Civic participation is an essential tool of modern government – benefits include making better policy, building ownership and consensus around some policy outcomes, accounting for actions taken and promoting participation” Scottish Executive Policy Unit 2000

The Standards – the ambition… “ A good practice tool, embedded at the core of what government promotes in Scotland” Communities Scotland

Why a set of Standards? Community engagement needed to improve – it had been criticised as: tokenistic and having modest impact focusing on peripheral decisions limited community influence on agendas over formalised procedures short time scales for consultation

How were they developed? Agencies and communities were at the heart and the Scottish Community Development Centre coordinated Focus groups highlighted the issues Working groups developed draft Standards An advisory group made comment National conferences reviewed them 6 pilot projects tested them Published in 2005

The principles behind them…. Equalities… to be explicit and evidenced Purpose… to be agreed and success defined Structures… to be clear and fit for purpose Knowledge… to be shared and used Skills… to be developed and applied Capacity Building… to see supports in place Information… to be accurate and timely

Introducing…….the 10 Standards 1.The Involvement standard 2.The Planning standard 3.The Support standard 4.The Methods standard 5.The Working Together standard 6.The Sharing Information standard

7. The Working with others standard 8. The Improvement standard 9. The Feedback standard 10. The Monitoring and evaluation standard

How can the Standards be used? To plan for community engagement To assess different approaches To monitor and review To evaluate impact To self evaluate – how are we doing? As a set of ground rules and code of conduct

What are they NOT for? Public relations Standardisation Lowest common denominators Unachievable ambitions Compulsion or punishment

Using the Standards……. Keep it simple Don’t use all the Standards at once Use the ones that are relevant Introduce them to a new phase of work Build them into work as it develops

The outcomes…..why bother? Greater clarity in community engagement Better informed dialogue on community needs Any action will benefit from a shared and coordinated effort Smoother progress towards change Disadvantaged groups and individuals will be included at all stages

Relationships between community and agency partners will improve Participants will be more confident, skilled and knowledgeable Collaboration with other agencies and partnerships will improve

For more information……. The Scottish Community Development Centre charity recognised as the national lead body for community development in Scotland a mission of supporting best practice in community development

…….online resources National Standards booklet User’s guide Illustrations from the pilots Advice notes A simple framework for self evaluation exists in Aberdeenshire – check with CLD staff: Banchory: Linda Gray Alford: Nicola Kenyon Aboyne: Tracey Latham