Community Engagement Report: Skills, Employability, and its Pillars

This report delves into the multifaceted realm of community engagement, examining its core pillars, diverse approaches, and the essential skills required for effective participation. It elucidates the principles of building connections, acting with humility, developing understanding, affirming dignity, and pursuing justice within community initiatives. The report further explores various types of community engagement, including information dissemination, community consultation, involvement, research, project-based, direct engagement, and advocacy, highlighting their respective methodologies and impacts. Moreover, it analyzes the skills and challenges faced by community workers and volunteers, such as leadership, communication, and resource management, while also addressing issues like disillusionment and funding constraints. Finally, the report underscores the significant benefits of community engagement for personal and professional development, emphasizing enhanced interpersonal skills, employability, and career advancement opportunities. The student's work fulfills the assignment brief requirements.

Community engagement 0
Community Engagement
Student’s Name
4/16/2019

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Contents
Executive Summary...................................................................................................................2
Pillars of community engagement..............................................................................................2
Approaches to community engagement.....................................................................................6
Skills and challenges faced by the workers and volunteers.......................................................7
Challenges faced by the workers and volunteers.......................................................................8
Benefits to personal and professional self-development and employability..............................9
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9
References................................................................................................................................10

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Executive Summary
Community engagement refers to a procedure of working collaboratively with and through a
group of people united by geographic proximity, special interest or related situation to
address issue disturbing the wellbeing of the people. It is an influential vehicle for taking
along with ecological and behavior changes that will recover the health of the community and
the members. The main objective of community engagement is to influence the decisions of
the members and promises to implement change. The main aim of the community
engagement program is to provide justice to all and bring positive change in the community.
Community engagement is based upon the principles to provide social justice, affirming the
dignity and acting with humility to provide equal rights and justice to all. There are various
types of community engagement discussed in the further paragraphs and the further report
will highlight the challenges faced by the volunteers in carrying community engagement
activities. The organization applies the theory of change to provide well-being and achieve
the goals of community engagement programs. There are various types of community
engagement to actively involve the people and retain the interest of a wider audience. These
activities help the volunteers to enhance their skills and also provide the opportunity of
professional development.
Pillars of community engagement
Community engagement focuses on bringing the change and ensures the well-being of the
community. The theory of change focuses on bringing the immediate and the long term
changes based upon the issue faced by the community. The first step in the theory of change
includes analyzing the community conditions .i.e. people, place and the conditions of the
community and the services to improve the condition. Secondly, the intervention of the

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government, individuals and the local to implement the change in the community (Voigt et al,
2016).
The third step includes the mechanism for implementing the change. The theory focuses on
strengthening social connections and improving the living conditions of the environment. The
theory focuses on analyzing the intermediate outcomes and the long term outcomes. The
intermediate outcomes include the changes at the local level and the long term outcomes
focusing on providing a safe environment and well-being to all the individuals
(Wordpress.com, 2018)
(Wordpress.com, 2018)
The theory of change is based upon the assumptions that the community consist of diverse
individuals but all must be treated as equal and focuses on providing social justice and well-
being to all the section of the community. It focuses on the empathic understanding of the

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individuals and support dignity to provide respect to all the individuals. It fosters in realizing
the self-worth and supports the individuals (Wordpress.com, 2018).
Building connections
Community engagement helps in building genuine connections with the community
organizations and the broader community. It focuses on creating positive individual and
institutional growth by developing empathic understanding; realize the fullness of dignity and
flourishes as individuals. It focuses on developing respectful relations and mutually beneficial
partnerships (Ho et al, 2015).
Acting with humility
Community engagement fosters on acting with humility. It considers all as equal and
minimizes the power disparities integral to features of community work. Humility is
prerequisite for genuine understanding and respect for human dignity. Such a humble, non-
moralistic and non-judgemental approach helps in fulfilling the personal responsibility and
flourishing humans (Wordpress.com, 2018).
Develop understanding
Community engagement believes in having empathetic understanding and listening to the
heart of the community. It believes in developing deep emotional connect and focus on the
needs, desires, and beliefs, dispositions of the people in a considered, compassionate and
respectful manner. If the organization will have a deep understanding of the needs it can
provide a meaningful contribution to the community and respect for all (Bandy, 2019).
Affirming dignity

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Community engagement believes in supporting dignity and working with the people in a
holistic and collaborative manner for a common good. It focuses on developing fundamental
orientation support for the marginalized and disadvantage section because of the beliefs and
attitude of society. It focuses on providing and protecting the fundamental rights of the
human. It helps in realizing the self-worth and development of the capacities within the
individual. Community engagement provides the equal worth and opportunity to all the
creation of God (Institute for Civic and Community Engagement, 2017).
Pursuing justice
Community engagement majorly focuses on providing social justice to all the humans
especially the marginalized and disadvantaged section of the society. It applies all the four
pillars mentioned above to provide justice and help to all who are in need. It stands in
solidarity with those who need it the most and works for the common good. It prioritizes
fundamental orientation support for the disadvantaged section of society (Bandy, 2019).
Community engagement types
Giving information
In this type, information is provided to a larger audience about the things that are affecting
them indirectly. For example, the public services provided to give ease and are easily
accessible for the larger audience (Ampag.com, 2019).
Community consultation
In this type, the consultation of the community is taken to change the issue that affects the
local people. The decision of local people is influenced either through statutory legislation or
through recognition of the value of the opinions of the local people. It is collected in the form
of surveys, workshops, web forums and community events (Ampag.com, 2019).

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Community involvement
It covers the range of activities undertaken to involve the community and influence their
decision. The main criteria of community involvement are to involve them in decision–
making and also provide the opportunity to the community to raise their own issues. For
example Partners and Communities Together (PACT) meetings, user group forums,
interactive online involvement (Ho et al, 2015).
Approaches to community engagement
Community-based research
This research takes place in the community settings and involves community members in
designing and implementation of the research project. The main goal of this approach is to
bring social justice and social change. It forms the collaboration between researchers and
community members. The community members can be informal individual members or
formally structured community-based organizations. Community-based research validates
multiple sources of knowledge and uses multiple methods to discover and disseminate
knowledge (Australia Government, 2016).
Project-based community engagement
In this approach community engagement is incorporated in the course through the way of
projects. The project is designed in collaboration with the faculty and the community partners
or government. This approach allows the students to apply community engagement to their
course and provide opportunities to the students to explore the real world and help the
community partners in achieving their community goals (Eder et al, 2018).
Direct community engagement

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In this approach, the organizations provide the opportunity to the community to directly
contribute and participate in the decision-making process. The active participation of the
community is through workshops, public seminars, interagency forums, and random selection
surveys. In Australia major art performing companies provides free outdoor performance
covering the culturally diverse people and contributing towards the disabled group.
Approximately 4.1 million attended the performance in the year 2015. It collaborates with the
education institutes and conducts workshops for the active participation of the community
(Gelmon et al, 2018).
Advocacy community engagement
This approach of community engagement focuses on the issues that provide equal rights to
all, social justice and focuses on bringing positive change. It includes sensitive topics that
directly affect the community. For example, Plan International Australia works to provide
equal rights to the girls and provide justice to young children. It collaborates with the
community partners to provide justice to the girls facing the inequality issues (Connor, 2009).
Skills and challenges faced by the workers and volunteers
It is analyzed that the community workers and volunteers are fully committed towards the
achievement of the goals. They have good leadership, motivation, and organizational skills.
They have the skills to tactfully handle the complexities and develop the trust of the others.
The volunteers have confidence and excellent communication skills to engage and gather the
maximum participants. They have an in-depth understanding of the policies and are able to
effectively relate a wide range of backgrounds (Leon et al, 2015).
The volunteers have the capability of providing training and effective management of the
resources and knowledge within the community. They are able to retain the interest of the

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community and influencing their decisions to contribute towards social justice. They have the
potential to take own initiatives and applies for funding of the events (Leon et al, 2015).
Challenges faced by the workers and volunteers
Avoiding disillusionment
The community members become dissatisfied when the action does not reflect the input they
have put in. It becomes difficult for the members to involve community due to a previous bad
experience. The members are not fully committed towards community engagement process
(Science Institutional Practices, 2016).
Establishing government arrangements
For the sustainability of the community engagement initiatives, the arrangement of the fund is
the critical requirement. If the government does not arrange enough funds it becomes difficult
to arrange fund depending upon the relationship with the professional and the involved
community members (Sustaining community, 2012).
Service flexibility
The service system needs to be flexible for achieving positive results from community
engagement. Lack of flexibility leads to a tied form of roles and responsibilities and does not
provide the opportunity to satisfy the emerging needs of the families (Science Institutional
Practices, 2016).
Asking too much of the community members
Providing higher power to few leaders creates stress and exhaustion. Their more involvement
in the decision-making process and partnerships can harm the community engagement

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objectives. Instead, the members must focus on getting diverse views involving all the
community members (Murphy, 2013).
Benefits to personal and professional self-development and
employability
Community engagement helps in personal and professional development by developing
interpersonal skills, confidence and providing the opportunities to enhance relation and
professional development. It helps in having real-life experience and to interact with the
wider audience (Sallnow and Paul, 2015).
It also provides the benefit of developing a professional career by collaborating and getting
training to handle the complexities. Community engagement provides the scope to the
students to get the employability from non-profit organizations and contribute towards the
community (Sallnow and Paul, 2015).
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it is concluded that community engagement focuses on providing
well-being to the community especially the marginalized and disadvantaged section of the
community. It fosters to provide social justice to all the people and does not consider
geographic proximities. The main focus is to bring the change with humility and supports
dignity. The community member develops a connection and satisfies the need of the
community by actively engaging members towards solving the issues. Involvement in
community engagement activities provides the opportunity of personal and professional
development. It provides employability to the community members.

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References
Ampag.com. (2019) Community Engagement [Online]. Available from:
http://www.ampag.com.au/community-engagement.htm [Accessed 16/04/19]
Australia Government. (2016) Community engagement [Online]. Available from:
https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/community-engagement/what-community-engagement
[Accessed 16/04/19]
Bandy, J. (2019) what is Service Learning or Community Engagement? [Online]. Available
from: https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/teaching-through-community-engagement/
[Accessed 16/04/19]
Connor, A. (2009) 18 rules of community engagement. United States of America:
HappyAbout.info
Eder, M.M., Evans, E., Funes, M., Hong, H., Reuter, K., Ahmed, S., Calhoun, K., Corbie-
Smith, G., Dave, G., DeFino, M. and Harwood, E., (2018) Defining and Measuring
Community Engagement and Community-Engaged Research: Clinical and Translational
Gelmon, S.B., Holland, B.A. and Spring, A. (2018) Assessing service-learning and civic
engagement: Principles and techniques. United States: Stylus Publishing
Ho, E., Clarke, A. and Dougherty, I., (2015) Youth-led social change: Topics, engagement
types, organizational types, strategies, and impacts. Futures, 67, pp.52-62
Institute for Civic and Community Engagement. (2017) Differences between Community-
Based Research, Community-Based Participatory Research, and Action Research [Online].
Available from: https://icce.sfsu.edu/content/differences-between-community-based-
research-community-based-particpatory-research-and [Accessed 16/04/19]

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Leon, N., Sanders, D., Van Damme, W., Besada, D., Daviaud, E., Oliphant, N.P., Berzal, R.,
Mason, J. and Doherty, T., (2015)The role of ‘hidden’ community volunteers in community-
based health service delivery platforms: examples from sub-Saharan Africa. Global health
action, 8(1), p.27214
Murphy, G. F. (2013) Community engagement, organization and development for public
health practice. New York: Springer
Sallnow, L. and Paul, S., (2015) Understanding community engagement in end-of-life care:
developing conceptual clarity. Critical Public Health, 25(2), pp.231-238
Science Institutional Practices. (2016) Progress in community health partnerships: research,
education, and action, 12(2), pp.145-156.
Sustaining community. (2012) Types of community engagement [Online]. Available from:
https://sustainingcommunity.wordpress.com/2012/04/07/types-of-community-engagement/
[Accessed 16/04/19]
Voigt, C., Dobner, S., Ferri, M., Hahmann, S. and Gareis, K., (2016) Community
engagement strategies for crowdsourcing accessibility information. In International
Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs, pp. 257-264
Wordpress.com. (2018) building community wellbeing: a theory of change [Online].
Available from: https://whatworkswellbeing.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/theory-of-change-
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