Click on the Prezi below to see the variety of topics that were discussed. With every click of the mouse, the Prezi will take you automatically through to the next part of the presentation, or you can zoom in and out to any part you are interested in.

Approaches to Community Engagement on Prezi

On 2nd March 2010, Harmonious Leeds hosted a regional conference on approaches to community engagement in conjunction with the Yorkshire and Humber Empowerment Partnership and the Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnership.The conference aimed to support practitioners across the region, from the third sector and local authorities to gain greater understanding about models and methodologies for engagement, as well as to raise awareness of the range of techniques for delivering and measuring empowerment activity.

 The keynote speaker was Pete Duncan, from Social Regeneration Consultants who began by outlining his views on engagement and empowerment and their respective roles in communities. He reiterated that the only sustainable approach is one where genuine and practical partnerships are forged from grass roots. He also outlined what he sees as a shift in the relationship between government and citizens and the need for all organisations, agencies and authorities to better understand each other.

Pete had recently completed work on new toolkits for measuring engagement in neighbourhoods, and hosted a workshop outlining their content. One toolkit focuses on Local Authorities and their partners and contains a series of questions intended to identify engagement priorities in neighbourhoods. Another toolkit is designed for communities themselves to use to identify their strengths and perceptions of what public service provision is like in the area. The last toolkit covers how communities and Local Authorities can together create an action plan for improved empowerment in the neighbourhood.

A second workshop was run by Mandy Wilson and Tony Herrmann from COGS. They looked at the spectrum of engagement, and outlined the range and variety of methodologies that are available for monitoring and assessing community engagement and empowerment. They also guided participants through choosing methods as well as the right toolkit in different situations.

The afternoon was Open Space where participants chose their own topics for conversation. These ranged from how to deliver localism effectively to doing no harm.