Community Engagement

ISCRI Community Engagement Model

Community engagement is built on the principles of equality and social justice. It acknowledges that barriers to public health and social care services exist for many people and that those barriers are often rooted in the failure of agencies to adequately recognise the complex social, cultural, religious, economic and generational experiences of distinct communities.

It further recognises that within some communities there is a lack of awareness about a range of health and social care issues and services. Around some of these issues (for instance, substance use and mental health) and within some communities, stigma and denial exist. Community engagement takes as its starting point the premise that the community itself has the greatest ability to access its own members in order to raise awareness and assess need and that agencies have the responsibility to develop services to meet that need. However, the complete body of knowledge required to develop the needs of all people, to raise awareness on a range of health and social care issues, to educate, and to disseminate information does not lay wholly with the community or with the agencies. Hence, creating an environment where communities and agencies can share that knowledge will fill the gaps. Through them process of community engagement, social capital is utilised to effect organisational change. Equitable services, a product of organisational change, are in turn, utilised to increase social capital – a virtuous circle is created.

The model of community engagement was developed by the Centre for Ethnicity & Health (CEH), now known as the International School for Communities, Rights and Inclusion (ISCRI). The model has been developed and tested over a series of projects undertaken by the CEH over the last five years. The model has been used mainly in work with Black and minority ethnic communities and largely around the issues surrounding drug use, mental health and regeneration. The model covers a five stage process and is made up of the following essential components: key players, that is, communities and agencies, who engage together around an issue, which in its broadest sense is always barriers to services; equipped with tools & resources, that is, funding, time, expertise & knowledge and a framework for the engagement activity. The activity is facilitated by an independent facilitator, with the expertise to create the environment in which the engagement can take place. Each of these components is essential to the model’s ability to effect sustained change.

Fountain, J. Patel, K. Buffin, J. (2007) Community Engagement: The Centre for Ethnicity and Health Model. In Domineg, D. Fountain, J. Schatz, E. Bröring, G (eds) Overcoming Barriers: Migration, marginalisation and access to health services. Amsterdam, Amsterdam Oecumenisch Centrum (AOMC)/Correlation network for social inclusion and health

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Winters, M and Patel, K (2003) The Department of Health's Black and Minority Ethnic Drug Misuse Needs Assessment Project: Community Engagement, Report 1: The Process. Preston, Centre for Ethnicity and Health, University of Central Lancashire