Enhancing Community Engagement: Approaches and Best Practices

This report discusses the importance of community engagement and how it can improve the overall welfare and social growth of people. It explores various approaches and best practices for enhancing community engagement, including stakeholder participation, effective communication, and social media engagement. The report also highlights the importance of community mapping, multiculturalism, and transparency in community engagement activities.

Community
Engagement (2)

Table of Contents
INTRDOUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................1
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................2

INTRODUCTION
Community engagement can be explained as the activity of uniting the diversified beliefs,
values, cultures, traditions, etc. of an individual, group or society. It mainly includes the
participation of people from various geographic divisions, interest, behaviours, mind set etc. so
they can help the people who are suffering from problems or issues with their community well-
being. It can be elaborated as a process of bringing unity in diversity for improving the living
conditions within a society or community. In terms of an organisation, community engagement
can be explained as the participation or involvement of people with diverse backgrounds, values
etc. come together for enhancing the welfare of communities to achieve organisational goals
effectively and efficiently. Community engagement mainly aims at bringing the democratic ideas
of people for improving their conditions to coexist at a place (Biddison ande et. al., 2018). The
following report will reflect on the approaches that can be helpful in enhancing the community
engagement activity. Moreover, it will reflect on improving the communication and coordination
of the people by eliminating their differences for improving the community engagement. In the
end, it will demonstrate various efforts that are helpful for conducting the research and
engineering the activities through social media platforms for enhancing the best practices for
community engagement.
MAIN BODY
Gwen Walford House mainly focuses on spreading positivity and good health for the elder
people within the society by improving their life and maintaining good quality of health. The
organisation provides support, advice and companionship to the elderly people for helping them
through their daily activities and resolving their problems (Cherrington and et. al., 2019). The
community leadership and community services are very important for enhancing the community
engagement activities. The community engagement activities are very important for the people to
have positive psychological health, societal support and quality lifestyle. It has to channelize the
growth of people as well as the whole community by creating and developing the behaviours,
values and attitude that support community engagement. I understood that community
engagement helps people and society around, to tackle difficult situations in much easier ways by
working in teams and working in collaboration for finding solutions easily. Without involvement
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and participation in the growth and development of the community the community engagement
activities cannot be succeeded. For bringing changes among the people throughout the world it is
very necessary that people should develop community interactions, community coordination and
community engagement for being competitive towards the world. Being culturally competent
and highly exclusive within a community such as Gwen Walford House provides understanding
and acceptance of people from various backgrounds, age groups, cultures etc. to exist together
for supportive growth.
I learnt that with the help of social media, people can share their views, ideas, traditions and
culture with each other and understand the behaviour and attitude of each other. This has
enhanced the community interaction by spreading awareness among the people (Di Napoli and
et. al., 2019). With the help of social media, awareness among the citizens for enhancing the
welfare activities within the society and developing community interaction for improving the
positive relationships among people. Social media is also helpful in improving the engagement
of stakeholders, people and groups by spreading awareness, knowledge and understanding of the
elder age group.
The use of social media has mainly leveraged the community engagement activities in
positive manners for improving the lifestyle of people. It was helpful to use social media for
initiating regular campaigns and empowerments through social media activities. I realised that
this will be helpful to attract maximum people towards them and also combine other non-
government organisations or similar programs to collaborate for improving community
engagement. The use of social media is a very effective way to enhance the social cultural
integration by conveying the ideas, values, norms, traditions and beloved of one culture/society
with others for improving community engagement. With the help of social media tools and
techniques these values can be generated more effectively and efficiently among the people and
increase their services effectively and efficiently (Mayger and Provinzano, 2021). I would
considered these factors for improving the community interaction and resolving the community
issues by providing better care and assistance to the people.
I became aware that certain skills such as effective leadership and good listening abilities
can be helpful at all the aspects of life and it can support the oral growth and development of the
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community. There are many attributes, qualities and skills later vital for constantly engaging the
people and bringing cultural competencies for the oral welfare of society and people around us. I
experienced that having knowledge and learning is very essential for improving the oral
community engagement activities such as the use of digital technology and various technology
aspects for bringing people together. It has made me realise that there are various skills,
capabilities and knowledge that are required for bringing a true sense of community engagement
within the people (Mbah, 2019). It can only happen by gaining knowledge and understanding of
the other diversified cultures, traditions, norms and people for improving the coordination and
cooperation among each other. I understood that knowledge can be helpful in enhancing the
community engagement activity among the people by creating awareness and helping them to
adjust with others.
As per my views, comment engagement activity is very important within a society because it
unifies the people and their efforts for achieving the optimum growth opportunities. With the
help of the experience and knowledge acquired from the Gwen Walford House it can be said that
community participation is highly important for developing community engagement because
without the people of community or society it is impossible to develop integration among them.
It is highly important for improving the overall social life of the people by taking part in
activities such as providing healthcare, better psychological support, knowledge and experience
sharing, helping elderly people, participating in health drives etc. For developing a continuous
and effective change it is necessary that there is consistency in understanding and awareness
about the issues that affect community engagement internally as well as externally.
It is expected that people will contribute their knowledge and experience for bringing better
changes in the community and create positive changes in the society (Mehta and et. al., 2020).
Everyone should bring positive changes by obtaining collaborative cooperation among people
and it requires a lot of growth activities that must be positive and it encourages the participation
of people. The best practices of community engagement are also helpful because it represents the
population, including proper planning and evaluation of the activities for continuing engagement.
Every person from different places who has lived different lives and has different experiences is
brought together. The planning of community engagement can be made effective and better
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results can be obtained. It is important that building a project or community engagement plan
must address the opportunities to create better support for vulnerable people in the community.
With the support of people it is possible to achieve community engagement effectively and
efficiently that will require the different active consultation, effective communication and
stakeholder participation for building healthy relationships. The active communication,
stakeholder participation and inclusion can help to improve the overall community engagement
activities (Mtawa and Wangenge-Ouma, 2022). It requires consistency of efforts to create strong
and interconnected community engagement that provides new learning and knowledge. Gwen
Walford House has focused on the learning of elder people so they can understand the conditions
and situations prevailing in the society for improving their communities. It has been understood
that participation in managing the risks for removing thoughts and behaviour of elderly people
can be done by community engagement activities. The discovery of underrepresented people can
be helpful for enhancing community engagement activities. It has been understood that by
imagining the overall problems within the society by being at the place can be helpful to enhance
interactions among the people. I understood that listening can be helpful to understand the
perceptions of people and experts could be helpful to develop better interaction processes in the
community. I learn that with the help of active consultation, the information gathering can
become easier and help in community engagement activities. The information and knowledge
that are gained by cooperating with other people can be helpful in building better community
relationships with the leaders for resolving their problems. With the help of active consultation
the connection within the community and thoughtfulness can be learned about the various
cultural backgrounds and enhance the communication engagement activities with the help of
local meetings and community activities. I understood that stakeholders are the major
contributors for enhancing the community engagement activities because they help to develop
the participation of more and more people within a community. For improving the stakeholder
participation in community engagement activities providing good care activities and reasonable
behaviours is required. This is helpful in maximizing the number of people in the community
engagement and motivating others to take part towards community development.
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Intentional and precise languages can be very useful for interacting with the people within
the community and enhancing the community engagement by reducing the disparity among
them. There are many ways for enhancing the community engagement activities through
improving the overall perceptions towards community development (Mtawa, 2019). Gwen
Walford House has utilised various community engagement methods for increasing the
community engagement activity. It mainly has developed best practices of community
engagement that helps in improving the interactions of people to walk together.
Enhancing community participation is very helpful to understand various requirements and
lacking in the community that could enhance the community engagement practices. Community
mapping is helpful to understand various requirements of the community and provide better
opportunities for engagement. By addressing the language barriers the technical issues during the
community engagement program that is interference due to the language can be avoided and
more useful information can be created. Along with this defining the terminology can help in
community development and overall budget are funds for the project in interpreting and
transitioning effective community engagement activities. With the help of impact analysis the
community engagement activities can be well understood and reach and understanding abilities
of impact of community engagement activities can be enhanced. With the help of
multiculturalism the engagement activities can create, demonstrate and define a positive inter
cultural mix where everyone respects each other. The meetings are another way for providing
useful community engagement practices and increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of
people.
Community participation can also enhance the social engagement with the help of social
media platforms that is a key to increase and enhance the community engagement activities
(Neuhaus, 2018). The social engagement through various technologies like social media and
digital platforms the community engagement through sharing of data and knowledge becomes
easier. On the way collaboration activities are also helpful to demonstrate the usefulness of
community engagement for spreading the message to reach the maximum number of people.
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Certain activities like cultural events and programs are a better way to encourage community
engagement activities for everyone. Moreover, showing trust and historical patterns of decision
making among the community members can also help to reflect on the public inputs and enhance
the community engagement activities. Transparency in the capabilities, roles, responsibilities,
time, finance etc. is helpful to provide greater inclusiveness in the community engagement
activities. The better rules for engagement can help to improve the corrections and expectations
of people towards the community engagement activities.
CONCLUSION
It has been concluded from the world report that community engagement activities have to
bring collaboration and encourage unity in diversity among the people. It provides chances to the
people to exist with each other from different societies, cultures, practices, norms values,
behaviours etc. for resolving the conflicts, problems and issues for creating well-being for each
other. It has been obtained from the above report that community engagement helps to enhance
the overall community welfare and social growth of the people. Moreover, it has been identified
that it is important for the people to fully fill their community responsibility and improve their
quality and practices of community engagement. Furthermore, it has been describing various
activities for improving community engagement such as identifying under-presented people,
gathering inputs, putting you in other people's shoes, consultancy, etc. Regarding this, many
descriptions about stakeholder participation, effective communication etc. have been identified
for improving the community engagement and inclusion in community engagement activities.
Finally, it has been analysing research and community mapping, social engagement through
social media platforms, evaluation and justification of best practices along with the impact
analysis for this purpose.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Biddison, E. L. D., ande et. al., 2018. Scarce resource allocation during disasters: a mixed-
method community engagement study. Chest, 153(1). pp.187-195.
Cherrington, A. M., and et. al., 2019. What does it mean to be an ‘engaged university’?
Reflections from a university and school-community engagement project. Education,
Citizenship and Social Justice, 14(2). pp.165-178.
Di Napoli, I., and et. al., 2019. Community trust: A social indicator related to community
engagement. Social Indicators Research, 145(2). pp.551-579.
Mayger, L. and Provinzano, K., 2021. Leadership for family and community engagement: A
qualitative policy analysis of state principal evaluation processes. Educational
Administration Quarterly. p.0013161X211052501.
Mbah, M., 2019. Can local knowledge make the difference? Rethinking universities' community
engagement and prospect for sustainable community development. The Journal of
Environmental Education, 50(1). pp.11-22.
Mehta, M., and et. al., 2020. Community engagement through responsible leadership in
managing pandemic: insight from India using netnography. International Journal of
Sociology and Social Policy.
Mtawa, N. N. and Wangenge-Ouma, G., 2022. Questioning private good driven university-
community engagement: A Tanzanian case study. Higher Education, 83(3). pp.597-611.
Mtawa, N. N., 2019. Human Development and Community Engagement through Service-
Learning. Cham, Switzerland Palgrave Macmillan.
Neuhaus, C. P., 2018. Community engagement and field trials of genetically modified insects
and animals. Hastings Center Report, 48(1). pp.25-36.
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