Community Engagement: Best Practices, Consultation, Communication, and Inclusion

This report explores the best practices for community engagement, including active consultation, effective communication, and stakeholder participation. It discusses the importance of community engagement for the growth and development of individuals and the community as a whole. The report also provides insights into different activities for consulting and improving community engagement, such as identifying underrepresented people, putting yourself in other people's shoes, and gathering input. Additionally, it analyses research on community mapping, social engagement through social media platforms, impact analysis, and evaluation of best practices.

Community
Engagement

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Differences, comparison, analysis and evaluation of the best practices for community
engagement.............................................................................................................................1
Discussion of different active consultation, effective communication, stakeholders’
participation, and inclusion in community engagement.........................................................3
Analysis to explore research...................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Community engagement refers to perform in groups for the welfare of society. It includes
contribution of number of people according to the geographic division, similar interest, similar
situations and mind set so that they could serve the people who are suffering from any problem
or issues. It is the process of bringing collaboration in the working of people with diverse
geographic locations, societies, culture, interest etc. to solve the issues or address the problems
that are affecting their well-being and calmness. In the terms of an organisation community
engagement can be elaborated as the involvement or participation of all the people residing
closely in the welfare of the communities (Mbah, 2019). Community engagement is focused
towards the democratic ideas of individuals to collaborate and create effective public
participation for improving the effectiveness within the society. The following report will
describe the project by comparing, analysing and evaluating the best approaches that were
developed by them for community engagement purposes. Moreover, it will reflect on the things
that can be done in better ways for enhancing the community engagement. Furthermore, it will
demonstrate the differences that can be made into community engagement by improving
communication and the participation of people within the community engagement activity. In the
end it will analyse the efforts that were made in order to conduct the research and engage through
social media platforms by evaluating and justifying best practices.
MAIN BODY
Differences, comparison, analysis and evaluation of the best practices for community
engagement
Age UK wants to spread positivity among elder people of society by improving their life and
maintaining quality of living standard. They give support, companionship and advice to elderly
people who have issues in their life. Community engagement, community leadership and
community services are the most important ways by which community engagement can be
obtained. Being engaged with the community in which a person lives is very important to
channelize their optimum growth and development of the people within the community. It is
important to the people as well as the whole community because it helps to care and develop all
the people within the community (Mayger and Provinzano, 2021). I understood that being
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engaged within a community helps every person around us to tackle the difficult situations easily
and effectively by working in teams and developing solutions to the problems. Without
participating or involving myself in the growth and development of the overall community I
cannot expect the changes within the society and the changes that I want to see within the nation.
Being culturally competent and very exclusive, especially within a very diversified and healthy
community such as Age-UK is a necessity because it allows us to understand and accept all the
people from various ages for the development of people within the society.
Age UK help elder people in learning digital skills so that their live become easier.
Technological skills make them independent so that they can perform some of the activities by
themselves. Digital technologies give them freedom to connect with each other and communicate
their thoughts and expressions.
I learnt that having skills to be an effective leader is relevant in all aspects of life. It is
because the leaders are the backbone who supports the growth and development within the
community by improving individuals to perform better and have an effective communal
approach. There are many attributes, qualities and skills that I think are very vital for a leader to
constantly engage people and get engaged within the community, and cultural competencies for
the betterment. It is important in order to show great leadership qualities that are essential for
developing good community engagement among the people.
Along with it, I can also utilize my learning to become more effective with my knowledge,
scales, capabilities and experience to become a good citizen in the community (Di Napoli, and et.
al., 2019). This course has made me understand that knowledge is true power and those who are
knowledgeable provide greater attributes within them for being culturally competent by
understanding the needs of people such as I did in Age-UK. I understood that knowledge can
help to understand the community engagement by understanding the background of people and
helping them to adjust with the community.
As per my views, community engagement is very-very important within a country or state
because it unifies the efforts of people towards the overall development of the state. With the
help of learning from Age-UK I learnt that community participation is much more important for
the other people in the society. It is highly important because it does not involve the activity done
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only once within a year like taking part in homeless shelter activities, helping the old aged people
and participating in health drives for their good health. In order to have a long term effective
change we must be consistent or perpetual in our understanding and awareness about the issues
faced within the society and old age group.
All the people should contribute their knowledge and understanding for bringing better
changes in the community by creating better community engagement efforts (Mehta, and et. al.,
2020). Everyone should bring positive change by obtaining a collaborative corporation among
the teams so that their awareness and knowledge can be utilised for creating better actions for the
people. Personally I have understood that I require a lot of growing activities and developments
for myself so that I can contribute more towards the community in positive ways. Taking one
course is not going to help me therefore I need to know more about community engagement and
how to be effective at it.
The best practices for meaningful community engagement can be utilised because by
representing populations in visualising and planning the community engagement activities. If a
high number of views are obtained from different people who have lived different lives and have
different experiences, they can provide important visions for planning the community
engagement activities effectively. It is more important that building a project or resulting plan
should address the opportunities and needs that may be hidden from the above and discover the
most marginalized people in the community (Mtawa and Wangenge-Ouma, 2022).
Discussion of different active consultation, effective communication, stakeholders’ participation,
and inclusion in community engagement
The support of community engagement in an effective and efficient manner it is possible to
shape it for fulfilling the needs of people which requires time and flexibility in consistent ways
(Neuhaus, 2018). Building healthy relationships and trust among the people can help to enable
their connection to the project and oral processes for the people working in the community. It
requires consistent efforts and measures to strengthen and the interrelated connectivity across the
community, which are elaborated below.
 New learnings and knowledge can be gained by communicating with stockholders. Age
UK focus on the learnings of elder people so that they can better understand the
conditions and situations.
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 Participation to manage the risk of negative thoughts and behaviours of elder people
who are connected with Age UK.
 Discovering underrepresented people at the meeting or event can help to define the
particular group of focus and can provide information or guidelines for reaching them
effectively with the higher efforts.
 Imagining self into other people's shoes can also be very helpful because it helps to
understand the factors that may have forced them towards absenteeism and eliminate
common barriers to show and grow effectively.
 Listening more during the conversations can help to understand the perspective of the
person and provide expertise and experience of people who can be helpful to develop the
insight (Biddison, ande et. al., 2018).
 Gathering input and buying in on your project’s aims and its marketing materials can be
helpful to enhance the community engagement by encouraging the people for the activity.
 Seeking information from the groups that are actively trying to engage can help to
develop better community relationships with their leaders and can help to solve and
inform the problems.
 The connection with the community and pose and cultural backgrounds together
information can be helpful to enhance and improve the communication engagement
activities by introducing the people with good understanding.
 Developing thoughtfulness about the location of meetings and events can also be helpful
to provide the community with public transit with the help of bus etc.
 It can be helpful to develop a neutral location where every group can get access very
easily so that more people arrive for community engagement at Age-UK.
 If the venue is familiar the people are more deliberate to take part because the place is
more accessible for everyone and is at reach of the people.
 Word of mouth is time tested and does not get old fashion, which can be helpful to
improve the activity for community engagement at Age-UK.
 Investing the time to connect with Stakeholders the people and members of the
community can help to multiply the reach of the community engagement activities of
Age-UK.
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 Valuation of practices can also be helpful to provide better insight about the community
engagement activities for Age-UK.
 Providing food and child care at the events can be helpful to the maximum number of
people and motivate them to take part in the community engagement activities
(Cherrington, and et. al., 2019).
Analysis to explore research
Precise and intentional languages are very helpful for communicating with the members of
the public and enhance the community engagement activities disregard of any disparity among
them. These ways are very active to enhance the community engagement activities of the people
and improve their overall perceptions towards community development. By utilising it the Age-
UK is definitely helpful in achieving community engagement.
Community participations
 Community mapping can be helpful to understand the various requirements and lacking
in the community that could enhance the community engagement practices. Utilisation of
community mapping can be helpful in understanding the requirements of the community
and can provide better opportunities for engagement.
 Addressing the language barriers by eliminating the use of technical jargon and
acronyms during the meeting the language barrier can be absorbed and more useful
information can be provided.
 The definition of terminologies can be provided so that it is here for the community to
gross things in a more effective manner at Age-UK. Understanding the concept and total
overall budget or funds for the project, its interpretation and transition can help to create
efficiency in community engagement.
 Delicate funds in the project budget for interpretation and translation services can also
be useful for interpretation and translation of services in the community. Impact analysis
can provide useful understanding about the reach and understanding ability of the impacts
of the community engagement activities of Age-UK.
Multiculturalism
 Creating, demonstrating and defining the engagement activities and its real meaning
can also be helpful to provide better community engagement activity.
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 The meetings are the one way of gathering people and providing them with useful insight
for community engagement.
 Creation of multiple ways in which the people can be involved can help to increase or
enhance the community engagement activity more effectively and efficiently.
Community participations
 Social engagement through social media platforms is an effective way to enhance the
community engagement because it could help to create consistent connectivity with the
community and improve community engagement by sharing knowledge and data.
 The social media platform can be useful for developing social engagement in better ways
for improving the community engagement of Age-UK.
Collaboration
 Performing activities like the experience shared by others can be helpful to demonstrate
the usefulness of community engagement (Mtawa, 2019). Using the existing networks to
spread the message can be very helpful in reaching the maximum number of people.
 Showing trust and historical patterns of decision making among the community
members can help to reflect on the public inputs and enhance the community
engagement.
 Transparency in the capabilities, limitations, rules, responsibilities, time and financial
constituents can be helpful to provide better inclusiveness in the engagement of
community.
 Making better rules for engagement can help to improve the cultures and norms
regarding the expectation of people with the community engagement of Age-UK.
Correcting the mistakes when the feedback or complaints are received can be very helpful
for improving community engagement.
CONCLUSION
It has been concluded from the above report that community engagement requests a process
of bringing collaboration in the working of people with divergent geographical locations,
societies, cultures, interests, practices etc. for solving or addressing the problems and issues that
affect their well-being and calmness of their life. It has been obtained from the report that
community engagement is helpful to enhance the organisational community as well as the whole
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society of the people. It has been identified that it is important for the people as well as the full
community to help and care for others for improving and developing the people within a
community which can be done by working in teams. Moreover, it has been describing the
differences by evaluating the best practices of community engagement that requires the position
of certain skills and abilities for the growth and development of our community. Furthermore, it
has been describing and elaborating about various activities for consulting and improving
community engagement such as identifying underrepresented people, putting yourself in other
people's shoes, listening more during the conversations, gathering input, seeking information and
many more. In this context, the description about activities like consultation, effective
communication, stakeholders participation, developing thoughtfulness and investing the time to
connect with people etc. can be helpful in providing better community engagement and inclusion
in community engagement activities. Furthermore, it has analysed the research on community
mapping, social engagement through social media platforms, impact analysis, evaluation and
justification of utilising the best practices 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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