Engaging Stakeholders

Before starting your work in your community it is helpful to examine if your agency and community are ready by assessing:

Community engagement is a fundamental piece of prevention work. Targeting the community-level of the social-ecological model can be an effective way to change key factors and characteristics to create an environment that prevents violence from occurring. It often involves partnerships and coalitions that help mobilize resources and influence systems, change relationships among partners, and serve as catalysts for changing policies, programs, and practices. Community engagement strategies vary depending on the environment you are working in and the priority population for your individual/relationship prevention strategies. Below is a table with several means of community engagement.

Community Engagement Strategies
Name Focus Population (where used) Training Duration Evaluation Measures
Transforming Communities: Instigate! Creating Community Action Teams (CATs) Instigate! An Online Toolkit for Starting a Community Action Team by Transforming Communities.

The nine INSTIGATE! modules are arranged like a series of stepping stones to guide you step-by-step through the exciting and challenging process of launching a CAT campaign or community event.		 Communities

TC-TAT is available to work with your organization and team to provide technical assistance, resources, and information to support your prevention activities.

They provide:
Individual consultations via e-mail and teleconferences with the requesting organization.
Specialized training sessions through webinars or in person.
Other technical assistance, such as on-site support, is available upon request.

 There is some evidence to suggest that CATs are an effective community engagement tool

In addition, the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence has some resources for CAT teams such as a sample memorandum of understanding.
Caring Communities/ Community Change-Capacity Building Models Community Capacity Building to Promote Healthy Families

Chapin Hall Chicago has several resources on their website.

Ohio State Community Extension also has some resources based on the developmental assets.		 Geographically based locations, tenement housing, housing projects/low-income housing areas. These are more organic/grass roots efforts that focus on community assets and building off the assets of the communities. There are several citations from academic institution on “how to” build community. Improved health, reduction of violence, increase in safety and economic support, reduction of child maltreatment.
Chapin Hall has documented evaluation for various community building efforts.
Caring School Communities Positive youth development. Grades K-6 in schools (universal) 1 Day workshops
Follow-up Visits
Includes teacher package, principal package, read aloud libraries.
 Evidence Based Practice by SAMHSA
Alcohol
Drugs
Education
Social functioning.
Communities Now! formerly Front Porch Initiative Child Abuse Prevention
Community Capacity Building to intervene in preventing child abuse and neglect.
 Community members including faith community, neighborhood members, and institutions within the neighborhoods. Community Capacity Building through a Train the Trainer Model from American Humane Association who then do 2 Day-14 hour Community Trainings. Self-assessment of intervention opportunities, skills and effectiveness from 3 sites focused on learning outcomes. Lessons learned from the project are also available.
Not In Our School Not In Our School highlights and creates networks of schools that engage student bystanders to take a stand against violence and harassment in schools through youth education and sharing of ideas of how to build a healthier school environment. High School Students Here is a menu of NIOS workshop options available to schools, districts, and county offices that are aimed for teachers, site teams, and other educators. See evaluation tool here.

 

Additional Resources for Community Engagement:

The Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence offered a webinar on Using Social Media Effectively, while not recorded, the slides are available here: and offer a lot of useful information.

Activism Campaign Resources

The Improve Group created a presentation on activism campaigns that compiles information from a variety of sources and draws from many of the tips and suggestions offered by Amnesty International. The slides can be found here. Focused conversation questions to go along with the activism campaign slides can be found here.

Amnesty International offers a variety of resources for a multi-layered approach to activism campaigns, while many have some focus on Amnesty’s campaign to stop violence against women using a human rights approach, many of the strategies and suggestions can be applied to any subject.