HomeMy WebLinkAboutCAO-10-021 - Community Engagement Strategy - 2010 UpdateREPORT
REPORT TO:
Councilor B. Verbanovic, Chair, and Members of Finance and
Corporate Services Committee
DATE OF MEETING:
June 7, 2010
SUBMITTED BY:
Shelley Adams, Director, Community and Corporate Planning,
Ext. 2476
PREPARED BY:
Shelley Adams, Director, Community and Corporate Planning,
Ext. 2476
WARD(S) INVOLVED:
All
DATE OF REPORT:
May 25, 2010
REPORT NO.: CAO-10-021
SUBJECT:
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT STRATEGY: 2010 UPDATE
RECOMMENDATION:
That the Community Engagement Policy Statement and the Community Engagement
Toolkit attached to Chief Administrator’s Office report CAO-10-021 be approved.
BACKGROUND:
In October 2006, Council received and adopted “A Plan for a Healthy Kitchener, 2007 – 2027”
(P4HK) as the community’s vision for 20 years into the future. P4HK presented 6 priority areas
for strategic focus – quality of life, leadership and community engagement, diversity, downtown,
development and the environment. It also presented high level recommendations for action in
each of these areas to be completed over the term of current Mayor and Council, 2007-2010.
Compass Kitchener - in its role as “champion” for community involvement in municipal decision-
making and having responsibility for monitoring progress on strategic goals and objectives in
P4HK - included the development of a community engagement strategy in its 2007-2010
workplan. In October 2007, a working group – comprised of staff from various departments and
representatives from community organizations - was created to move forward with this mandate.
The group was tasked with an additional objective: to include communication and outreach
methods and tools appropriate for and accessible to, diverse audiences.
The Community Engagement Strategy Working Group (CESWG) tabled its draft policy and
framework with Council in May, 2008, and asked that more time be allotted for:
the development of processes and tools to support its implementation in the corporation,
including a process to assist staff in determining which mode/combination of modes of
engagement to employ, and when;
checking in with advisory committees and other community members to determine if we are
headed in the right direction;
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pilot the use of the toolkit; and,
in the longer term, create training opportunities for staff and develop methods for monitoring
and evaluating our collective engagement efforts.
This report serves as an update in regard to the above and outlines next steps for a full
implementation of the attached community engagement policy and toolkit.
REPORT:
What is Community Engagement?
Community Engagement means regularly engaging citizens through the sharing of information;
through citizen consultation on specific projects; and through the active and ongoing
participation of citizens, businesses and community organizations in the development of city
policies, strategies and plans for strategic investments. It is a key component of “governance”,
namely the process that determines how a society directs itself, and how citizens are afforded a
voice on issues of public concern, and how decisions are made on these issues.
It brings with it an array of potential benefits – supported by research and experience – including
enhanced quality of decisions, greater understanding and consensus building among
stakeholders (including traditionally marginalized groups), reduced polarization and conflict,
increased ease of implementation, intentional anticipation of public concerns, and an increase
in civic capacity.
As a way of going business, community engagement takes many forms:
…from a casual forwarding of a friends email to deep involvement in a board of
directors. Some engagement is lightweight and some is deep, and that’s OK – we can’t
expect everyone to have the same degree of interest in our mission. In fact, having a
mix of people with varying levels of interest and engagement is actually a good thing.
Why? Because being effective at change means being able to choose from a portfolio of
strategies and tactics in a way that best maps the specific conditions we are facing at
any given moment. (G. Rosenblatt, groundwire.org)
The City of Kitchener has a well earned reputation as a city whose residents want to be
engaged in municipal decision-making. Looking out 20 years, 90 percent of respondents to the
2009 Environics survey confirmed “our shared vision is for Kitchener to be a community in which
the residents are engaged and active in decision making on local issues”. While we do, in fact,
have a history of and informal “policy” in regards to public participation, we have not as yet
cemented this commitment through formal policy and procedures. Thus, adoption of the
community engagement policy statement
following is a necessary first step. (Please refer
also to the attached draft City of Kitchener Community Engagement Toolkit, City of Kitchener’s
Commitment to Community Engagement.)
To the best of its ability and as appropriate, the City of Kitchener is committed to
using community engagement strategies and tools that involve the community in
decision making to the highest degree possible. It is in everyone’s best interest to
support leadership and community capacity.
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Processes and Tools to Support Implementation;
As requested when the draft policy was tabled in 2008, staff and a number of Master of Social
Work interns have worked together to build a “toolkit” to ensure the best case implementation of
this policy. In short – it provides staff with tools to make community engagement easy,
meaningful and fun. Particular attention is paid to helping staff decide which mode of
engagement to use, and when. A strong case is made for the mixing and phasing of multiple
modes of engagement in any – and more likely all - community engagement activities.
The toolkit includes:
A description of community engagement and its potential benefits;
The City of Kitchener’s Commitment to Community Engagement (policy statement) and
Guiding Principles;
A Framework for Engagement, summarizing the modes of engagement, their “promise to
the public”, a description of their actual form, and examples;
A consideration of barriers to participation and potential solutions;
Choosing and designing an appropriate community engagement process;
Case examples of each mode of community engagement;
A case for using many forms of engagement in one project;
Monitoring and evaluating your engagement process; and,
A selection of tools and resources appropriate to each mode of engagement.
The draft policy and toolkit has been reviewed and discussed with the City’s Advisory
Committees and Corporate Management Team. General consensus regarding the value-added
aspects of the policy and support for its implementation has been received in each case.
Community volunteers at advisory committee tables have suggested sharing the toolkit – once
finalized – with neighbourhood associations and other community based groups, as a resource
for their own work in communities.
One particular challenge to implementation will be the management of expectations – of
community members and City staff - regarding roles, responsibilities and rights in municipal
decision making. Simply, there will be times when ‘engagement’ is neither appropriate, nor
possible. For example, a major renovation on private residential property is dealt with via the
Planning Act. As such, a homeowner comes to the municipality for approval and is not required
to consult with her neighbours about her plans. In another example, other orders of government
may enact legislation that requires the Municipality to make certain decisions, to pass certain
bylaws, or to participate in particular mandated programs. For example, we are required to
implement the Customer Service Standards under the Accessibility for Ontarians with
Disabilities Act (AODA). That said, the City has undertaken substantial information sharing,
consultation and collaboration in developing programs – the how-to’s - that respond to the
legislation.
The overarching goal is, always, to engage a representative sample of the community in
decision-making, and who that “community” is will differ depending on the policy, initiative, or
issue. As importantly, we recognize that certain people and groups of people in our community
will be difficult to reach and involve in civic life, such as racialized groups, new Canadians,
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Aboriginal peoples, people who are homeless, those who face barriers due to poverty, and so
on. Marginalization impedes full participation. Our engagement strategy aims to reduce
barriers by providing both a reminder for adequate and appropriate outreach to the margins, and
by providing potential solutions to prospective barriers.
Monitoring and Evaluation;
A section on monitoring and evaluation has been included in the Community Engagement (CE)
Toolkit and a focus of the training for the implementation of this policy. Evaluation is a beneficial
aspect of any CE process, because it helps to identify what works and what doesn’t, assesses
whether the process was successful, provides feedback on staff performance, and increases
accountability. A key purpose of doing an evaluation is informing and improving future CE
processes. A clear, structured, and planned framework for evaluation is necessary in order
to maximize these benefits. However, the scale and scope of an evaluation should consider
scale and scope of the CE process itself, as well as the purpose and audience for the
evaluation. The toolkit elaborates upon the four steps central to a successful and effective
evaluation of a CE process are therefore:
1) Define and clarify the community engagement process to be evaluated
2) Determine the purpose for the evaluation and who should be involved
3) Compile a list of key questions and the information required to answer them
4) Identify sources of data and methods for collecting new data
Next steps;
With Council’s approval of this policy and toolkit, staff across the corporation will be invited to
pilot the formalized community engagement processes and toolkit. A training session(s) will be
offered for the purpose of:
Enhancing staff knowledge of and skill in planning, designing, implementing and
evaluation a range of engagement techniques,
Gaining practice in identifying which form of community engagement is most
appropriate to use and when, and identifying and solving barriers to involvement
through scenario-based case examples, and,
Sharing “Tips and Tricks” for navigating the challenges of CE, (e.g., managing
stakeholder expectations, facilitating so that every voice is heard, dealing with
conflict in groups, consensus building, etc.)
This pilot period will be monitored itself, and, if necessary, adaptations will be made prior to full
implementation, to best support City of Kitchener staff in involving residents and other
stakeholders in municipal decision-making.
Active involvement in local decision-making is both a community (Leadership and Community
Engagement) and corporate (Creating a Culture of Inclusion) priority, as described in the City of
Kitchener Strategic Plan. In the longer term, the intent is to centralize oversight for community
engagement at the corporate level, under the leadership of Community and Corporate Planning
unit. In so doing, we are better able to encourage and facilitate a coordinated, strategically
focussed approach to community engagement, as well as provide a consolidated mechanism
for monitoring, evaluating and reporting on our commitment to this strategic priority.
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FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS:
None at this time. Costs for community engagement are included in overall project costs and
funds for inclusive engagement practises can be requested through the Corporate Accessibility
fund and the Diversity fund.
COMMUNICATIONS:
A communications plan will be developed for the “launch” and implementation of this strategy
upon its approval.
CONCLUSION:
The City of Kitchener’s community engagement strategy serves to formalize a long held norm of
involving community members in the work of this municipality. The proposed policy, processes
and tools further encourage, provide a framework for, and simplify citizen participation for the
future. And, in so doing, move the yardstick on the community’s vision for city where residents
are engaged and active in decision making about local issues.
ACKNOWLEDGED BY:
Carla Ladd, CAO
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