Best Practices for Community Engagement: A Case Study of Alzheimer's Society

This report discusses the best practices for community engagement with a focus on Alzheimer's Society. It covers approaches used by the society, the role of effective communication and stakeholder participation, and the process used by the community to achieve best practices.

Community
Engagement-2

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Community engagement approaches..........................................................................................3
Role of effective communication, active stakeholders’ participation, and inclusion can make
in community engagement..........................................................................................................5
Process used by Community to achieve the best practices. .......................................................6
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................7
REFERNCES:..................................................................................................................................8
Books and Journals:....................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
The report aims to provide understanding of best practices for community engagement. It
is a vital part for society and business to engage community for doing projects and practices as
per society wants and needs. Community engagement considers as working with group of
individual to serve special facilities and resolve issues for the well being of society (McDonnell
and Buswell, 2018). It is a kind of social services that enables through working voluntary efforts
to maintain society and its environment. It includes involvement of many agencies, charitable
institutions, NGOs and other sources who take interest for well being of society in which
number of people come together to identify issues and start raising funds for implementing the
project. Therefore, this report is going to focus on various approach and practices that must
enable effective community participation. There will be comparison of two charitable trust
name as Alzheimer's Society and AGE UK. The report mainly focus on Alzheimer's Society, It
is a charitable foundation operated in 1979 serves their operations in England and Wales. The
institution provide assistance to society who are affected with Dementia diseases (Albrecht,
2019). The organisation aims to improve quality of life by giving treatment and daily essential
to the effected people.
MAIN BODY
Community engagement is the efforts of organisations that aim benefit of society. It is
important for these organisations to take such efforts so that they are able to make society one
unit. It is seen that there are various charitable organisations that serve the purpose. All of them
have their own aim but that is related society.
Community engagement approaches
There are some approaches that are used by the organisations in regard to community
engagement. All the organisations have their own approach to achieve the targets and that ate
disused below:
Alzheimer’s Society: This society aims to helps all those who are suffering dementia. As this
disease causes various problems and the old people are unable to deal with these issues. Because
of this disease they are unable to live their life happily (Zanini and et.al., 2019). So, Alzheimer’s
Society works in such a manner that these people are able to come out of all such problems. The
approaches that are used by Alzheimer’s Society are discussed below:

 Web-based engagement: As the world is turning towards digitalised method of doing
the work. Alzheimer’s Society also uses digital ways to engage people. It is being
observed that Online public participation is an useful way to engage the customers. As
there are various stakeholder that are related to organisation. They use social media, web
based survey systems, and online discussion platforms (Tataw and Ekúndayò, 2017). This
approach help them cover large number of people and collect data in an effective manner.
It is a flexible and continent way that encourage the participation of the people. It helps
them to engage more and more people so that they can help them and cater their needs
and wants.
 Surveys: The another way that is being used by Alzheimer’s Society is survey. They use
this method to know the real problem that is faced by people as well as they make efforts
to know about the victims of dementia. This helps the society to know accurate details
about the opinion on stakeholders. As well as this is a cost effective approach.
It is important to note that there are various other charitable organisation and they use other
approaches. The approach that is being used by AGE UK are mentioned below:
 Focus groups: This technique is based on forming groups. They encourage discussion
and reach to stakeholders. The work to help the old people and engage them in best
possible way.
 Community meetings: AGE UK arranges community meeting and try to discuss all the
issues that are faced by these people. This is helpful for them to enhance openness as well
as transparency to stakeholders. This approach help to know about the information as
well as deliver feedback.
It is seen that all the organisations are different from one another. Here, Alzheimer’s
Society plays a vital role in life of older people that face the problem of dementia. As well as
they understand the importance of social media and digital ways that help them to achieve goals
and objectives. They work in such a manner that the old people are taken out of the problem and
they can also live freely without any disease. It is beneficial for them to use approaches such as
Web-based engagement and Surveys. Each and every organisation is different and have their
own purpose that helps them to achieve success.

Role of effective communication, active stakeholders’ participation, and inclusion can make in
community engagement.
Community engagement is a process of working with people that belong to a community
to solve a particular issue and take positive decisions for benefit of the members. It is important
to engage all the stakeholders in the process of community engagement. Community engagement
is based on effective communication. It is being observed that there is trust that helps
Alzheimer’s Society to work in an effective manner. There is requirement of common
understanding that helps in changing in positive manner. It is beneficial for them to use effective
communication to deal with older people and treat them in an effective manner (Lin and et.al.,
2020). Otherwise, the will not feel good and will not be able to come out of their disease. It is
vital to involve all the stakeholders in decision-making process as that help to take wise decision.
Alzheimer’s Society makes efforts to engage stakeholders in such a manner that helps them to
understand them. As the stakeholders are considered as community members the word
community engagement is used. It helps the charitable organisation to work in an effective
manner. All the stakeholders and and their active participation is essential in success of the
community. Without engaging stakeholders the charitable trust they will no be able to work in an
effective manner. All the member work by following the practice of inclusion. It helps them to
work together by taking care of interest of all the members. It is essential to note that inclusion
working means working in group and in such a manner that helps in benefit of all the members.
Herein, all the members of Alzheimer’s Society work together in such a manner that helps in
benefit of society. As their purpose is to support people that are suffering from dementia. They
try to help them to work in an effective manner. Alzheimer’s Society is using various social
media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter as well as YouTube (Vanderslott and
et.al., 2021). It is seen that all these platforms help Alzheimer’s Society to work in such a
manner that all the members are able to know about their organisation. So, effective
communication is vital to communicate the message to all and make them work in direction that
helps to achieve goals and objectives of organisation. It becomes vital to involve each and every
member and integrate them towards the goals of Alzheimer’s Society. It is vital for them to work
in an effective manner. It vital for them to take care of ll the points and work together for success
of organisation.

Process used by Community to achieve the best practices.
Communities uses a process that helps them to achieve goals and objectives. It is seen
that they cover each and every important part that is essential for their success. In relation to
Alzheimer’s Society the steps followed are as follows:
Start with research: It is important to note that it is one of the important task for
charitable organisations to conduct research. As that will help them to know about the members
that they are willing to serve (Shariff and et.al., 2017). It become vital for Alzheimer’s Society to
conduct good research that will support them to assist the people that need assistance. As with
the help of research they are able to know about the people that are facing issues as well as able
to gather quantifiable data that will help them to take further actions.
Map community priorities: The next that is being followed by Alzheimer’s Society is to
map out the priorities. As they have already conducted research it is important to note the work
tat they have to do. Proper planning is essential for them and assist them in achieving their best
practices. They work in such a manner that all the objectives are achieved. They set priorities and
work upon them to for benefit of community and all its stakeholders.
Hold preliminary meeting: It is seen that them to communicate effectively. It is seen that
they work to achieve goals and objectives of community. In the meeting they discuss all the
important points that will help them to move towards their goals. It is seen that they discuss
about the approaches that they can use and will help to engage the members. In relation to
Alzheimer’s Society they make effective use of social media platforms as that helps them to
cover large number of people and serve them. They are willing to provide service to more and
more people and make them part of their society.
Monitor performance: It is seen that monitoring the performance is also important. As
only working and not checking the results is meaningless. So, Alzheimer’s Society work to
identify about the outcome of their performance (Werth and et.al., 2020). They check that are
they able to serve all the old people about which they get information. Are they able to reduce
the disease among number of people. It is seen that they target to serve as many older aged
people as they can for the benefit of society.
All these steps are followed by Alzheimer’s Society to work in a successful manner It is
important to note that proper research helps the organisation to know about the people that they
are willing to serve. Stakeholder engagement through social media is also helpful for the

organisation. In the end monitoring evaluating the performance help them to know the mistakes
and take measures for future.
CONCLUSION
It is concluded from the above report, that community engagement is an integrated part of
society through which many of society issues and problems gets solved with the support of
voluntary contribution. It has analysed that, problems which are revealing into the society could
only be better understood by society people itself as they know how to deal with different
culture, background and communities at a single time. Governments could not look at each
society concern due to which there are still some issues which are prevailing and has no solution.
For that instance, charitable agencies, voluntary institution and NGO are found to be saviour for
society who does not work for profit making but aims po serve society a better lifestyle and
equal rights to live healthy and happily. Therefore, there are many approaches web based,
survey, focused group, community meeting which are effective to analyse need for assistance
and find regions and place where people are facing difficulties by suffering from diseases.
There are many factors that impact on community engagement and their success as it is very
complex process to serve society with equality and people make best utilisation of their resources
provided. Stakeholders and working with inclusion play a vital in delivering best practices of
community engagement. Hence, the chosen organisation providing health care facilities across
the England with engagement of stakeholders who are government, NGO and public funding.
These stakeholders works for societies sake and give their contribution for well being and
securing future of community. Also, the report has find out transparent community selection
process in which volunteers decide to give priorities to those who are in prompt need by
ascertaining leaders into community to gain knowledge about people condition and
circumstances. By holding meetings with leaders will come up with better solution for services
best practices.

REFERNCES:
Books and Journals:
Albrecht, J.F., 2019. Promoting enhanced public participation and community engagement in
policing. In Policing and minority communities (pp. 55-71). Springer, Cham.
Lin and et.al., 2020. Community Engagement Approaches for Indigenous Health Research: an
Integrative Review.
McDonnell, J. and Buswell, E., 2018. Grass roots community engagement. Ecogeneration,
(108).
Shariff and et.al., 2017. Community Engagement Program: Bringing about Community Well-
being. Global Business & Management Research, 9.
Tataw, D.B. and Ekúndayò, O.T., 2017. Mixed Methods in Prostate Cancer Prevention and
Service Utilization Planning: Combining Focus Groups, Survey Research, and
Community Engagement. Social work in public health, 32(4), pp.254-272.
Vanderslott and et.al.,, 2021. How can community engagement in health research be
strengthened for infectious disease outbreaks in Sub-Saharan Africa? A scoping review
of the literature. BMC public health, 21(1), pp.1-16.
Werth and et.al., 2020. Authenticity, Coherence, and Power Shifts: A Framework for Assessing
Community Engagement Across the Criminal Justice System. The Howard Journal of
Crime and Justice, 59(4), pp.400-422.
Zanini, and et.al., 2019. Soccer and twitter: virtual brand community engagement
practices. Marketing Intelligence & Planning.