Putting community voices in the driver’s seat

In this post, we’ll dive into the first phase of our C.A.P.E. process: Community Collaboration.

This month, we’re going to focus specifically on collaboration with community members - today, we’ll get oriented to what we mean by that and in a couple weeks, we’ll walk through some specific strategies in this arena.

Without further ado, let’s get into it - FAQ style.

What do you mean by collaborating with community members?

I like the idea of collaborating with community members instead of “engaging” them or “empowering” them.

Community engagement sometimes gets misinterpreted to include any superficial/half-hearted effort - what I call the “We talked to that one community member once and asked them leading questions so they could confirm what we already decided to do” approach. As my three year old has recently taken to saying (in response to just about everything) - no, thank you.

Community empowerment suggests we are giving power to community members. But we do not empower communities, they empower themselves.

Instead, we use the term community collaboration to capture a meaningful effort to listen deeply, put community voices in the driver’s seat, and actually take what we learn from listening to community members and work with them to act on it and make changes.

Listening is vital, but we can’t stop there.

What are some ways to think about how we collaborate with community members?

I love a good framework, and in the arena of collaborating with community members, “The Spectrum of Community Engagement to Ownership” (hat tip to Facilitating Power) is one of my go-tos. Community ownership moves beyond merely engaging the community to “foster[ing] democratic participation and equity through community-driven decision making”, helping bridge the gap between community and governance. We can’t get there in one fell swoop, but a step taken to move along this spectrum is a step in the right direction.

Source: Modified version of figure in The Spectrum of Community Engagement to Ownership by Facilitating Power

What questions should I be asking myself about how we collaborate with community members?

How long have we been a presence in the community? Have we built lasting, trusting, mutual relationships with community members? If not, how can we begin to take steps towards that?

Have we shown our respect for the voices and expertise of community members - by way of compensation, building from their existing strengths and assets, and ensuring they are driving the agenda and we are supporting them as opposed to vice versa?

What specific changes - to processes, decisions, investments, programs, policies, or systems - were made based on what community members had to say? What specific changes did we see in beliefs, behaviors, and health or other outcomes as a result?

What have we done to build collective capacity of the community, whether via training/capacity building activities, building political power, supporting mutual aid efforts, sharing financial ownership, or other means?

When you do this work well, you’ll feel the results. Have you had a community member tell you they feel heard and seen in your work? I can tell you from experience, it’s the best feeling. And more importantly, it’s the key to unlocking the kind of transformation we want to see in our communities.

Sign up to receive future newsletters directly in your inbox at www.pophealthllc.com!