Effectively Engaging with our Communities

Community engagement can take many forms and cover a broad range of activities. The Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment has developed a three-part kit to assist people seeking to engage with various communities.

The Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) has developed an 'Effective Engagement Kit' as part of a suite of approaches to build the capacity of it’s engagement practitioners in:

• Informing the community of policy directions of the government.
• Consulting the community as part of a process to develop government policy, or build community awareness and understanding.
• Involving the community through a range of mechanisms to ensure that issues and concerns are understood and considered as part of the decision-making process.
• Collaborating with the community by developing partnerships to formulate options and provide  recommendations.
• Empowering the community to make decisions and to implement and manage change.

It is a best practice planning tool which can contribute to better project outcomes, better relationships with community, enhanced reputation for your organisation, increased understanding of community issues and improved partnerships and networks.

The kit is comprised of three booklets:

• Introduction to Engagement.
• Engagement Planning Workbook.
• Engagement Toolkit.  

Follow this link to the Effective Engagement Kit (opens in a new browser window)

The DSE has also developed an Effective Engagement Planning Tool to assist practitioners plan their engagement activities.

This application will take you through a step-by-step process for developing your own Engagement Plan.

Follow this link to the Effective Engagement Planning Tool (opens in a new browser window)

For further information

Contact	:	Dept of Sustainability and Environment
Address	:	PO Box 441, Echuca, VIC 3564
Phone	:	136 186
Email	:	customer.service@dse.vic.gov.au

WWW

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http://www.dse.vic.gov.au