Community Engagement: A Multistep Process

Community engagement is like politics done right. It's planned, it's flexible, carries all the opinions and weight of the people's voices into consideration to create a plan of attack that meets the needs of the people. While every project will vary, most follow the same basic outline, a five-to-six step process that bridges the local and academic community together to achieve success. In this section, we'll be talking a bit about the general process of an average project in engagement based on a design by researchers from the San Francisco Department of Health.

Step 1: Outreach and Organization
Communication is everything in engagement, and is the first step of the whole process. Outreach not only includes introductions, but also the opportunity to seek out representatives within the community willing to participate and become advocates - people who can help the research team communicate with the community and also provide a voice for community itself. Advocates help bring in the concerns and issues they'd like to address to the researchers and create a foundation for the project.

Step 2: Research and Design
Perhaps where community engagement differs the most from standard charity, researchers hit the streets and try to get the heart of the matter here. Advocates found during the outreach process became instrumental here in not only making connections, but explaining problems and issues unapparent to the researcher's eye. Advocates play a major role in fact, taking charge of the research design and providing ideas for how to go about conducting any research in the community. The researchers play more of a supporting role, helping shape the plans and tie loose ends, sometimes providing research examples to give advocates an idea of how and where projects can go.

Once a research is made, the team is sent out to work, gathering interviews and data to help build a picture of the problems in the community.

Step 3: Analysis and Preparation
Once the data has been collected, it's time for analysis. A big part of this process is the education provided to advocates on how to interpret the data found. A major goal of community engagement is to help members of the community gain the research experience and confidence to go out and do more future projects. Advocates are taught how to not only analyze data, but also present their findings to the public.

Step 4: Action
Once the problems have been found, it's time for action! Advocates take the knowledge gained from their research and take on some of the ideas generated from their analysis. They're encouraged to take on any project as long as it manageable and creates a positive effect on the community. Projects are designed with the goal of creating closer ties in the community while encouraging more supportive activity towards a common goal, whether it be improving the neighborhood, battling an illness, cutting violence, or other similar kinds of problems that can plague a community.

Step 5: Sustainability
At some point in the project , an eventually assessment needs to be made to see if the project was effective. Several things can happen here, adjustments may be made, and possibly new projects proposed.