Involve have now published the first results of their audit of resources for engagement and empowerment, and there's a fair chance it won't end up as I feared as just another toolkit. (download pdf).
Their audit confirms that there are already a lot of research studies, toolkits and other resources out there, however:
Their main focus is usually on participation in one sector, be it health care, neighbourhood renewal etc, rather than the broader engagement field. There has been a tendency to "reinvent the wheel", with each research audit starting afresh and not building on past findings. As a result the understanding of the problems is relatively well developed whereas potential solutions are much less well understood. Bringing existing work together to share common themes and develop opportunities for knowledge sharing should allow future research to maximise its added value to the field.
The audit also identifies practitioner networks, and a dozen online resources that act as information hubs. Again, they don't join up.
Whilst resource hubs do enhance the cohesion of their sectors, they reinforce the divisions in the broad engagement field as there is no evidence of them communicating with each other in any meaningful sense.
The research suggests - not surprisingly - that people learn from each other, and that networks are particularly important. At the same time, local government staff are often given responsibilities for engagement work without any prior familiarity and find they are working in an environment that may not be helpful.
Cultural issues were seen as strong barriers to engagement, with hierarchical institutional culture being especially contrary to a culture of engagement.
Understanding of and support for engagement at managerial level seems to be key. Support from managers allows staff working in engagement to advance the agenda and gain wider support. Local authorities who were seen as most effective at engagement activities were those that place community engagement within the Chief Executive's departments. The least effective are those who include engagement in the press or PR departments, reflecting a lack of a deeper understanding of engagement.
All of this suggests that there are great benefits to be achieved from joining up networks and resource hubs, and encouraging knowledge-sharing across sectors.
I hope it means that the clients for the research, the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), will resist the easy option of commissioning yet another portal-type web site which just becomes the electronic equivalent of a toolkit. There's a suggestion of that in the terms of reference for the audit.
If they don't go down that route, the challenge will be to facilitate knowledge-sharing between the existing hubs and networks. Since all of those involved are, by definition, advocates of participation, engagement and empowerment one might think the prospects rosy. The difficulty, I suspect, is that they are also, to some extent, competing for Government and other funding, and are keen to preserve their identity and membership roles.
These days it is technically much easier to share resources online between sites, if they embrace blog-type content and feeds. The human, organisational, cultural commitment to share is of course something else.... and fundamental to new approaches to engagement and empowerment in the field. I hope that Involve and DCLG take a lead in promoting a new approach, and don't fall back into old-style toolkit/portal/all-in-one-place approaches. Next step - get people talking to each other. It can't all be done through research.
Small suggestion. It would really help if Involve would post updates about this work on their excellent blog, rather than just as pdfs, which are difficult to quote and link, and don't allow commenting. That might help start the knowledge-sharing too. Perhaps DCLG could join in ...
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