Social Innovation and Community Engagement

Running head: MANAGEMENT
Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive summary
The purpose of this report is to identify, analyse as well as evaluate the concept of social
innovation that is aimed to achieve greater community engagement along with the skills required
for ensuring the same. Along with this report will also include detailed discussion on the social
innovation and community theory in general. A brief description of the community engagement
types as well as approaches including advocacy, community based researchers, direct ommubity
engagement and project based community engagement has also been discussed in this report.
Moreover it will also include a proposal of a new social innovation concept along with
techniques of tackling different financial issues that was evidenced during the implantation
phase. Another significant problem that will be discussed in this report will include is the
environmental implications which may take place due to the proposed theory. Finally, an
overview of the skills as well as challenges of the worker in the community engaged services
along with the benefits of community engagement in professional and personal self development
and employability has been will be discussed in this report.
Discussion of community engagement theory
The term community engagement can be defined as the process of working in a
collaborative way with community groups for addressing problems that impose impact on the
wellbeing of that particular community (Hazelkorn 2009). Community engagement activities are
those activities that help individuals or organizations to get engaged in the community through
credible as well as transparent reporting, town hall meetings as well as collaborative decision
making. The community engagement is highly dependent on the following five factors, namely,
building effective connection, acting with humility, developing proper understanding, affirming

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dignity and finally pursuing justice. According to researchers, community engagement can be
defined as an relational process that take place at local level. Therefore it is highly crucial for
professionals engaged in community service to build personal relationships with the community
members on the basis of mutual trust as well as respect. Community service professions must
develop an effective understanding of the issues faced by the community members and their
perspective on the same in order to provide efficient community services. This provides the basis
of two chief aspects of community engagement that is effective joint decision making as well as
capacity building. When it comes to affirming dignity, it can be considered one of the chief
pillars of community engagement. It is highly crucial to affirm dignity of each of the community
members while working with them. This will not only enhance the bondage between the
community workers and the members but will also result in better decision making.
According to Batterham et al. (2016), community engagement can be segregated into
three broad types, namely, planning and decision making, community development or
community building and engaging individuals in the service delivery as well as for achieving the
goals of the community. When it comes to planning and decision making, it is specifically
relevant to the three levels of local as well as federal government agencies. However, a range of
private organization may also engage in the community for greater good. It has been seen that
individuals gets engaged in the community services chiefly for five reasons. They include the
aspiration to change things, personal as well as common interests, faith, exposure to community
centres and to find an opportunity of voicing own opinion. According to a recent survey,
approximately 8.12 million individual have taken part in various community services as well as
volunteer works in Australia. Statistics show that approximately 29 percent of the total

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population in Australia are engaged in community services. However, in order to eradicate social
issues in the nation, more active involvement has become highly crucial.
Community engagement types and approaches
When it comes to different approaches taken by the community worker as a part of their
community engagement, advocacy can be considered as one of the major approaches (O’Mara-
Eves et al. 2015). When it comes to social advocacy it may be defined as the activity by an
individual or a group that has the potential to influence the decision within the economic,
political as well as social systems and institutions. Social workers are found to involve in
advocacy for the community in order to eradicate the issues faced by the community members.
Lack of effective advocacy can lead to insignificant community engagement. Advocacy can be
defined as a vehicle that engage the community, build effective relationship as well as strengthen
the community form its core. The advocacy community engagement allows the community
service providers to lend their voice, writing ability as well as other talents for public inters.
The second approach to community engagement includes community based research. The
community based research is a partnership approach to a research which involves the community
members, representatives of the organizations, researchers as well as others. The aim of this
approach is to enhance the knowledge as well as understanding the issues faced y the community
members and integrate the knowledge gained for intervening social change benefiting the
members of the community.
The direct community engagement engages the community service providers to contact
person-in-person with the community members who need help for sustaining life (Hayes et al.
2017). Some of the major example of this approach includes teaching English as a second