CCEM 104 Question 3

[Carly Johansson]

There are 5 possible levels of engagement with the public – passive, reactive, participative, empowerment, leadership.

Have you been involved in a public participation event either as a member of the public or as part of your daily work? What level of engagement was used?

Are you aware of any public engagement processes that used the final two levels – empowerment or leadership? If so, tell us about one of them (topic, challenges, results).

[Carly Johansson]

I have not been part of public participation at the community level. I have participated in public engagement regarding environmental outreach and campaigning in a past life, but these tended to focus in the “Participative” level of engagement. I have not heard of a public engagement process that went to the last two levels – empowerment or leadership. I would not be surprised that in the near future we start to see more and more of them at the municipal level in locations with more engaged citizens.

[Jen Grebeldinger]

I would agree with Geoff in expecting to see more empowerment or leadership from the local government level. I know our council has gone through a painful process regarding the removal of two century old dams in the City for safety reasons. Allot of technical reasoning was brought forward for why the dams had to come down and not enough early community engagement was done in this case. As a result, a long and bitter dispute erupted with a local neighbourhood group that saw the dams and the ponds they created, as significant community amenities.

Despite all the professional advice from engineers on the need to dismantle the dams, the residents continued to dispute the results. At a far greater cost, a refurbishment program for the existing dams was eventually agreed on. However, it includes creating a new spillway that will mean a number of significant trees are taken down within the City Park where the dams are located. Many of the same residents are now angry about the loss of these trees in order to save the dam.

[Jen Grebeldinger]

I have been involved in public engagement as part of my work in the Community Planning Division with the City. While working on both the Official Community Plan (planNanaimo) and two neighbourhood plans, city staff used a combination of Passive, Reactive and Participative levels of public participation.

I don’t have direct experience using empowerment or leadership levels of participation, but I understand the Cowichan Stewardship Roundtable has some level of empowerment in its decision making on watershed management issues in the Cowichan Valley.

[Jen Grebeldinger]

I have been involved with a public participation event. I gave a summary of a report I had written, with some powerpoint slides. I wrote a survey, which was circulated at the meeting, and people followed up with it online. Getting some detail and feedback was really great. As the project was already many years in development, I think that the higher levels of participation (“empowerment” and “leadership” levels) had come long before, so we were probably functioning at the “reactive” level.

That being said, I’m not entirely clear what is meant by: “external organizations” in all of these descriptions. I’m assuming that this means organizations or consultants from outside the community. This may not always apply to community consultations, or didn’t at this meeting.

I know a lot of work around community visioning… energy use, environmental dream lists, have taken place over the years. It’s really hard to tell how useful these are. It seems that getting to down to work, implementing, is another art altogether. Does all the preliminary talking help? I can’t say for sure.

[Carly Johansson]

I appreciate what you’ve said in your last paragraph here. It’s very hard to be collaborative at the implementation stage. However, especially when the project affects or must include First Nations, it is very hard to empower (much less provide leadership options) once project objectives have been determined. Early and strategic work might alleviate this problem, enabling solutions to be determined from the bottom-up and providing greater latitude for community-based solutions during the implementation stage, but there’s a lot of resistance to this given the very technical and economic nature of project implementation.

[Carly Johansson]

Ryan
To further this discussion, I wonder if there is a way to start bridging the gap while including public participation at earlier stages of project implementation. One idea that comes to mind would to move part way towards doing this would be public engagement that gives the public a range of options to choose from and asking if there are options missed, than a second round would engage further once all suggestions are vetted. I recognize that there are major time and financial impacts of this sort of drawn out process – but maybe a step in the right direction.

[Carly Johansson]

The majority of community consultation work that I have participated in and/or organized recently have ranged from the passive to the participative. Very little work is done to organize meetings that could be considered in the “empowerment” or “leadership” categories. That said, these categories are better suited to higher level and local government led processes, and YG hasn’t done or supported very many of those to date. I would prefer that our community energy planning would provide public engagement roles of this type, however, to date we have only provided participatory opportunities.

[Jen Grebeldinger]

I have been involved in many public participation events both through my daily work (often set-up as a Sustainability Forum on a relevant topic) and through my participation & workshop facilitation in a variety of participatory, community engagement workshops/events. I have personally facilitated numerous “Work that Reconnects” workshops and have helped facilitate a few “Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream” Symposia.

The “Work that Reconnects” workshops (based on the very transformative, experiential work of Dr. Joanna Macy http://workthatreconnects.org/foundations-of-the-work/).

As well, I have helped facilitate a few “Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream” Symposia, which utilize an inter-active, video-based information-sharing approach that also draws upon the “Work that Reconnects.” http://www.pachamama.org/engage These

“Generation Waking Up” is an extension of the “Awakening the Dreamer” approach focused on Youth Leadership grew from these participatory Symposia http://generationwakingup.org/about

ALl of these participatory workshops are very much Participatory and Empowering with the potential for varying levels of Leadership depending upon the level of involvement each participant chooses to pursue following their involvement in the workshop.

I have been very keen to integrate more of any/all of these means of public engagement into the work I have been doing over the past 12 years. My challenge has been the difficulty in building these innovative, participatory, empowering approaches into my work given the the limited interest/ability for institutional organizations, such as the Federal government and NGO’s that I have worked with, to dig into the political, spiritual, & cultural implications of our highly consumptive behaviours that contribute to the depletion of our natural resources.

I am re-invigorating my pursuit of offering “Work that Reconnects” workshops and will happily share my passion for this work with anyone interested in these approached 🙂

[Jen Grebeldinger]

I’d like to look into these resources Teresa, thanks for sharing them. Good luck with furthering the work.

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