• 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

Overview of methods

Depending on the needs of the engagement issue and the particular community or group of citizens you want to work with, you may select either a single or multiple engagement methods. There are no rules for this type of work; the activities outlined below are provided as a guide only. You may have many other engagement activities in your personal community engagement toolkit.

Techniques often serve different purposes and some are better for informing, consulting or active participation than others. It is also important to recognise that higher-level facilitation skills are required for active participation than for consulting. The mixture of purpose and skill will help influence your choice, together with community demographics, community dynamics and the resources you have available.

It is important to acknowledge that whilst effective community engagement delivers important benefits in terms of improved policies and services and can contribute to more effective resource allocation in the long run, engagement activities are rarely cost-neutral. Some of the resourcing issues to consider include staff time, facilitator expenses, costs associated with evaluation, costs associated with publishing information, hiring venues, catering for group events, and establishing and maintaining web sites. However, it is important to invest in effective engagement, as there can also be significant costs associated with poor engagement practice. These include:

• costs associated with managing a community outraged at poor engagement
• costs associated with having to implement supplementary processes to obtain information not generated by initial poor practice
• costs associated with the implementation of policies or programs which do not meet community need as they are based on unreliable information.

The following table outlines a range of methods arranged by the level of engagement they are suited to and the scope of the engagement activity, that is, whether the aim is to engage individuals, groups or wider communities. The list is comprehensive and aims to give you an idea of the many choices available to you in engagement. While the techniques are categorised according to the level of engagement they typically support, it is important to remember that the same technique might be used to achieve outcomes across the engagement spectrum.

For example, you might use brochures during the early phases of an engagement process to raise community awareness. As the engagement process progresses, brochures might include both information and a consultation section that encourages community members to provide feedback on the information contained. The development of brochures could also be used to support active participation outcomes if communities are involved in developing the purpose, content, audience and format for the brochures.

Many different methods and tools are available, some of which are named differently by different groups using them. You will need to build your own understanding of the methods and their application to your community engagement activities.

Engagement audience

• Engaging individual citizens
• Engaging groups
• Engaging local or regional communities
• Engaging all Queenslanders

Engaging individual citizens

Level of engagement
Information sharing	Consultation	Active participation
Shopfronts Web sites Information workshops Brochures or direct mail Hotline Using the media Advertising Briefings	Shopfronts Telephone & personal interviews Surveying Focus groups Brochures or direct mail Interactive web sites	E-participation In-person interviews Surveying Employment as expert advisor or co-facilitator Voluntary critical friend Interactive web sites

Engaging groups

Level of engagement
Information sharing	Consultation	Active participation
Shopfronts Web sites Information workshops Brochures or direct mail Hotline Using the media Advertising	Shopfronts Polling Survey research Focus groups Participative processes Brochures or direct mail Citizen panels Future search conferences Open space technology Deliberative polling Steering or advisory committee Interactive web sites	E-participation and voting systems Citizen panels Future search conferences Open space technology Deliberative polling Community exhibitions or use of arts and theatre Steering or advisory committee Interactive web sites

Engaging local or regional communities

Level of engagement
Information sharing	Consultation	Active participation
Shopfronts Online processes Web site information Brochures or direct mail Information workshops Brochures or direct mail Using the media Interest groups and peak bodies Community fair Advertising	Shopfronts Participative processes Interactive web sites Surveying techniques Focus groups Whole-of-community consultation programs Interest groups and peak bodies Brochures or direct mail Public meeting Citizen panels Search conferences Open space technology Deliberative polling or televoting Open days Community exhibitions Steering or advisory committee Community meetings	Participative processes Interactive web sites Surveying techniques Focus groups Whole-of-community consultation programs Interest groups and peak bodies Public meeting Citizen panels Search conferences Open space technology Deliberative polling or televoting Open days Community exhibitions Steering or advisory committee Community meetings

Engaging all Queenslanders

Level of engagement
Information sharing	Consultation	Active participation
Web sites Shopfronts Information workshops Brochures or direct mail Using the media Interest groups and peak bodies Advertising	Participative processes at selected locations Shopfronts Public meetings Interactive web sites Surveying techniques Focus groups Whole-of-community consultation programs Interest groups and peak bodies Citizen panels Search Conferences Open space technology Deliberative polling or televoting Community exhibitions Steering or advisory committee Community meetings	Participative processes at selected locations Public meetings Interactive web sites Surveying techniques Focus groups Whole-of-community engagement Interest groups and peak bodies Citizen panels Deliberative polling or televoting Community exhibitions Community meetings