Читать книгу For the Love of Community Engagement - Becky Hirst - Страница 4

Up to this moment, my career has been a self-directed adventure. I’ve made some good choices and had some great luck. I’ve also been blessed to work with amazing people, in amazing communities, and in amazing locations. I have a passion for thriving communities. Vibrant conversations, connecting people, working collaboratively and building community pride: these are my reasons for being. After much soul-searching in recent years, I now accept that I’m meant to do this work in my personal and professional life. My work extends far beyond merely being a trade or a business that I’ve grown. I am passionate about community. I engage with people, groups and communities in decision-making because my heart is thoroughly committed to the belief that the world lacks engagement and needs more of it. I’m incredibly fortunate to create a life dedicated to this work. I’ve even found a way for my passions to pay the mortgage.

In 2009, I established myself as a consultant to local and state government clients in Australia, helping them involve people, groups and communities in decision making. In Australia, we call this community engagement, but elsewhere this process is labelled as public participation, community participation, civic participation or simply just consultation. Since then, I’ve not been shy in coming forward about community engagement in a thought-leadership capacity within our sector. Many times, I have heard about my strong reputation for outstanding, high-quality, and authentic community engagement. My clients tell me that I’m a pragmatic, values-driven community engagement practitioner. The people I work with in community settings describe me as authentic, genuine, and ‘the real deal’. People say I’m empathic, high on energy, driven and deeply passionate about what I do. My friends tell me I’m a natural community builder, even down to the social gatherings I host. Wendy tells me I’m full of chutzpah, oozing confidence and audacity that I use to drive positive change where it’s needed.

However, I regularly find myself questioning how or why I came to be these things. What makes my practice stand out as being different? Or special? Did I attend the University of How to Be a Really Awesome Community Engagement Person? Do I eat cereal that’s high in Authenticity Vitamins for breakfast? Of course, I didn’t, and I don’t. I’m not certain that anyone can learn the traits or principles that characterise my practice in one training course, even a university course, or on a single project. It’s been a rich combination of experiences.

Unknown to me at the time, I embarked on a journey that taught several valuable lessons that shaped me to be the proud community engagement practitioner I am today. I took those lessons on board one by one, popping them in my little skills and expertise backpack so I could pull them out, nurture or reflect on them for future projects. As a highly reflective practitioner, I see writing this book as an opportunity to refine further my principles of high-quality community engagement, based on my skills, knowledge, experience, and stories from the last 22 years. And, of course, to share them with my readers.

I hope that by sharing some of my experiences, lessons, and insights, we can begin a conversation about how to reimagine community engagement.

I hope that students studying community engagement will be encouraged by the contents of this book to think big, understanding that there’s way more to this work than learning the kind of consultation processes currently taught in universities. I hope that people already working in community engagement (such as consultants, public servants, in the private sector, or somewhere else) will use my book to reflect on their practice. And that this book will encourage them to think outside their safe and familiar comfort zones. I hope that people already deeply immersed in communities will discover the potential for making an even bigger difference by using their connections with community to inform decision-making at the highest level. I hope that current or aspiring politicians will read my book and reconsider their roles as leaders within our communities. That they will appreciate the importance of genuine listening, authenticity, and empathy, far beyond the once-an-election-cycle presence in communities that many currently have.

As a culture, we have a habit of thinking about community engagement as being touchy-feely, nice-to-have and part of a soft skill set. This is completely wrong. To have a thriving society, we need people and communities who are actively involved in civic life. How government and corporations involve people in problem solving and decision making about things that affect or matter to them is very serious business. And it requires hard skills.

There is no time to waste. I want this book to start conversations with colleagues in the lunchroom; with managers during performance reviews; with politicians when they’re door-knocking asking for votes; with children at the dinner table; with lecturers at university; with friends over coffee. With everyone!

To encourage this critical change, at the end of each chapter I pose some Conversation Starters to be used as prompts for discussion. The questions are based on the five Ws - who, what, why, when, and where - to provide a range of opportunities for contemplation about people, purpose, places, and the timing of community engagement. They will challenge the bureaucrat to reconnect with their inner citizen and challenge the citizen or local person to consider their connection to the powers that be. These Conversation Starters are a combination of different calls to action for the reader to both reflect and act.

I dedicate this book to my friend and fellow engagement geek, the late Mellita Froiland, née Kimber, whom I first met and worked with in the Community Engagement Team at the Children, Youth & Women’s Health Service in Adelaide back in 2008. In September 2020, she was taken from us, too soon, far too quickly, and way too young. In her final weeks, Mellita and I chatted via SMS about our shared eagerness to make the most out of the short time we have on this Earth. We both admitted that we never really stop unless it’s to reflect on how we’d learn from what we just did to make our next venture even better.

Mellita was also described as ‘the real deal’ by the people she worked with. When her brother made the tragic announcement that she had died, he suggested that we all carry forward Mellita’s zest, energy, and passion for a good life by continually asking ourselves, ‘What would Mellita do?’

I am certain that Mellita would encourage me to tell my story in this way, to inspire others to be the change we want to see in the world: more high-quality and totally awesome community engagement.

For the love of community engagement.