The NAAEE publication Community Engagement: Guidelines for Excellence focuses on community wellness and is designed to help environmental educators create inclusive environments that support effective partnerships and collaborations. This activity is based on Resource #10, which introduces processes and techniques related to Key Characteristic #4:
Oriented Toward Capacity Building and Civic Action: Environmental education supports capacity building for ongoing civic engagement in community life, contributing to long-term community well-being, sustainability, and resilience.
For this exercise, please think about a specific EE program that could involve civic engagement based on your work, studies or research. To start, ask yourself a series of questions about your reasons and readiness for civic engagement:
- Do you know why you want to involve other community members? Has the issue or question prompting the engagement been articulated thoroughly?
- Do you have sufficient human and financial resources to conduct an engagement process? Does planning and implementing a civic engagement process fit within your time budget?
- Have you identified who you want to engage? Are they willing and able to participate?
- Have you and your community partners made a real commitment to meaningful engagement? Are you prepared to use input even if it runs counter to current plans or assumptions?
- Have you considered potential risks or downsides of civic engagement?
- If you are involving others in decision making, do you have a clear idea of what you want them to decide? Are you sure that the participation task is real? That is, are you sure that critical decisions haven’t already been made?
Now, consider the following when designing a civic engagement strategy for this EE program.
1. Identify Civic Engagement Goals
The International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) has developed a “spectrum of engagement” for public participation projects that provides a starting point for environmental educators thinking about engagement goals.
- Inform: Providing the public with balanced and objective information to assist them in understanding the problem, alternatives, opportunities, and/or solutions
- Consult: Obtaining public feedback on analysis, alternatives, and/or decisions
- Involve: Working directly with the public throughout the process to ensure that public concerns and aspirations are consistently understood and considered
- Collaborate: Partnering with the public in each aspect of the decision including the development of alternatives and the identification of the preferred solution
- Empower: Placing final decision making in the hands of the public
2. Match Civic Engagement Techniques and Goals
Once you’ve identified the desired level (or levels) of participation, you can map out various tools and techniques to further your civic engagement goals. As a starting point, here are some techniques that match specific levels of participation:
- Inform: Brochures, newsletters, exhibits, kiosks, webinars, panel discussions, and open houses all present opportunities to provide information
- Consult: A variety of techniques can be tapped for gathering input, such as interviews, surveys or questionnaires, focus groups, polls, charettes, and town hall meetings
- Involve: Visioning exercises, deliberative forums such as Environmental Issues Forums, and conversation cafés provide participants with an opportunity to discuss issues in depth
- Collaborate: Civic engagement techniques in this category might include advisory committees, participatory decision making, consensus workshops, and “citizen juries”
- Empower: Participation supports decision making through facilitated deliberative dialogue, committees that have delegated power, or the use of inclusive techniques such as study circles, Future Search, appreciative inquiry, and Open Space Technology
3. Assess Resource Needs
Civic engagement can result in powerful outcomes. But some engagement strategies can require a considerable investment of time and other resources to implement. As you plan for civic engagement, inventory your resources and consider whether you and your partners can provide or access the necessary support.
4. Consider Issues of Power and Control
Each level of civic engagement selected comes with its own sets of programmatic and organizational dynamics. As you design your civic engagement strategies, consider the ramifications of power sharing and whether all stakeholders will have an equal place at the table.
As you map out your civic engagement strategy, and select techniques and tools, consider the following guiding questions:
- How does the tool or technique match your civic engagement goal(s)? How effective will it be in reaching your desired audience?
- What resources or expertise are needed?
- Can it be implemented within the available time?
- Who might feel comfortable/uncomfortable or included/excluded?
- To whom does this tool or technique afford power and decision-making authority?
- What obstacles need to be addressed to effectively use it?