Citizen Assembly

Details to follow Level of Involvement: Type of Involvement:

Questionnaires

Questionnaires are a cost effective way of gathering peoples’ views via several different avenues including, assisted, postal and online. They facilitate a quantitative approach to capture information from large numbers or representative samples. Consideration should be given to the design of the questionnaire including the wording of questions. Check out the NHSC England guide - 'writing an effective questionnaire' - which may help you. Findings from the questionnaires should be shared w...

Public meetings, roadshows and seminars

This is an event where an open invitation has been issued. There may be a set agenda or the discussion may focus on issues raised by those attending the meeting. Key decision makers should be present to inform the discussion. Level of Involvement: Type of Involvement:

Electronic engagement

There are a number of electronic methods currently in use, ranging from the simple use of websites for information giving to more interactive processes that allow stakeholders to ‘converse’ online or participate in processes that emulate conventional participative processes. Involvement processes to interactive with participants include: Online forums - can create communities that would not otherwise exist by putting participants in touch with people that they would not communicate with ...

World Café

The World Cafe is a flexible format for hosting large group dialogue and can be modified to meet a wide variety of needs. The following five components comprise the basic model: 1) Setting: Create a “special” environment, most often modeled on a café with tables seating up to 5 people. 2) Welcome and Introduction: The host begins with a warm welcome and an introduction to the World Café process, setting the context. 3) Small Group Rounds: The process begins with the first of three or more, tw...

Democs (Deliberative meetings of citizens)

Democs is a conversation card game. Players get hands of cards and take turns to play them. But instead of playing to win, they are playing to learn about an important new issue and inform their opinions about it. A Democs game has five rounds with one person acting as the dealer. A kit is available, which is made up of several different types of cards with information, ideas or stories about the topic. In rounds 1, 2 and 3, players get dealt different hands of cards which are read out and d...

Deliberative mapping

Involves both experts (around 20) and members of the public (public panel-up to 40 people from varied backgrounds) and combines a variety of approaches to assess how these participants rate different policy options against a set of defined criteria. The public panels and the experts consider the issue both separately from one another and at a joint workshop. This allows both groups to learn from each other without the experts dominating. The emphasis of the process is not on integrating exper...

Consultations

Public consultation is a process by which the public's input on matters affecting them is sought. Its main goals are in improving the efficiency, transparency and public involvement in large-scale projects or laws and policies. It usually involves notification (to publicise the matter to be consulted on), consultation (a two-way flow of information and opinion exchange) as well as participation (involving interest groups in the drafting of policy or legislation). Level of Involvement: ...

Participatory strategic planning

The Participatory Strategic Planning process is a consensus-building approach. It helps a community come together in explaining how they would like their community or organisation to develop over the next few years, working in partnership with decision makers from the start. It consists of four stages: The community determines their vision for the future of the organisation or community; The community describe the obstacles that are preventing them from reaching their vision with decisio...

Participatory appraisal

The term Participatory Appraisal describes a range of approaches to enable local communities to identify their own priorities and make their own decisions about the future. The organising agency facilitates, listens and learns rather than control the process. There is an onus on the agency to support the process eg provide resources and through time, to train ‘champions’ from the local community on the participatory appraisal approach. This enables local people to engage with existing communi...