How community forums aid genuine community engagement

The team at ECF have recently concluded a project in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, facilitating online and in-person co-design workshops with a community forum group, and are reflecting on the benefits these groups bring to planning processes and to wider communities. Overall, we takeaway three key benefits community forums bring to aid genuine community engagement processes:

1. Building long-term, lasting relationships with members of the community

Community forums are about listening and responding to local people’s experiences, issues and needs in real-time. The creation of two-way open dialogue over a sustained period between community members and project teams helps to foster cohesion that can spread to the wider community. In doing so, community forum members can bring not only their own experiences, desires and issues but bring those of other members of the community as well.

“I am grateful that I was able to play a part in expressing residents’ views and concerns and helping towards make it the best it can be.”

Comment from one of our community forum members

2. Achieving place-based design solutions

By taking the time to build context and understanding of the design and planning processes, community forum members are able to provide more in-depth and informed feedback to the design process. This means that design teams are enabled to deliver timely, placed-based design solutions that are directly informed by the voices of the community.

3. Engaging a varied and diverse response

Community forums are a platform for discussion amongst a group of local representatives with varied backgrounds and perspectives. A measured tone and pace of engagement, emphasising that no prior knowledge of the sector is required to participate, is used throughout. This appeals to some members of the community that are typically disenfranchised from traditional engagement methods. A varied and diverse response within a community forum subsequently fosters rich conversations, where debate, knowledge and ideas are shared with project teams.

ECF are community relations specialists, we use empathetic, participative processes that are accessible to people from all backgrounds and abilities. Community forums are one such method we utilise to enable people to have a voice and play their part in decision-making at the local level. If you would like to find out more about our community forum methodology, or any of our other services, please get in touch.