• Community engagement in context
  • Community engagement - an overview
  • Community engagement in a representative democracy
  • Key challenges for the public sector
  • Implications for public sector managers
  • The context for engagement
  • Clues to good community engagement
• Planning CE
  • Community engagement and the policy/planning cycle
  • Project goals
  • When is engagement necessary?
  • Community engagement objectives
  • Community research
    • Media research
    • Community profiling
    • Community segmentation
    • Community and issues analysis
  • Key communication messages
  • Selection of engagement techniques
  • Managing risk
  • Evaluation planning
  • Planning transition and exit strategies
• Implementing CE
  • Working with communities
  • Organisational culture
  • Resourcing
  • Structures and processes
  • Continuity and follow up
  • Representation and control
  • Coordination
  • Other issues
  • Embedding good practice
• Methods
  • Overview of methods
  • Methods of information-sharing
  • Methods for consultation and deliberation
  • Methods for active participation
  • Advanced participative methodologies
  • Choosing an engagement method
• Event management
  • Event engagement processes
  • Choosing a facilitator
  • Structuring the event
• Evaluating CE
  • Introduction to evaluation
  • Principles of evaluation
  • Identifying outputs and outcomes
  • Purpose and approach to evaluation
  • Evaluation criteria and indicators
  • Methods of measuring community engagement
  • Steps in evaluating community engagement
• Risk management
  • Identifying risks
  • Assessing risk
  • Managing external risks
  • Managing internal risks
  • Risk assessment and management plan
• Skills
  • Community engagement skills profile
  • Options for skills development
  • Building the skills of your team

Resourcing

Agencies are under strong pressure to be efficient with time and resources and deliver clear, measurable outcomes. Yet engagement can involve considerable effort and resources. Community renewal projects, for example, have highlighted the time and effort involved in developing community relationships and negotiating community issues.

Key questions	Tips for good management
What resources are available for engagement? How much effort and investment is appropriate? How can in-kind resources be best used?	Recognise the effort and resources required by community members. Community engagement costs need to be included in project budgets. Enough resources are required to complete engagement: even the smallest engagement exercise must go through to the feedback phase.

• When considering the level and extent of engagement, managers need to decide the resources to dedicate towards it. This may be staff time, facilitator expenses, costs of venues and catering, or reimbursing expenses for community participants.
• If external consultants are contracted to undertake particular engagement activities, it is critical that strategies are developed to ensure that the process and situational learnings they gain from the engagement process are shared with the contracting organisation, along with any content outcomes. Adequate time needs to be allowed for the consultant to fully understand the agency’s requirements and to gain the trust of the community.
• It is easy to think that effort and resources in community engagement are resources removed from the core work of service delivery. By better identifying issues and mediating community partnership, engagement can add value to service delivery. However, it also has the potential to increase expectations of services, putting pressure on resources to meet expectations.