For the Love of Community Engagement. Becky Hirst
people’s perception of safety in Granville, targeting young people and older people.
As with any new project, in any community, from my experiences hand delivering The Matson News, my first task was to immerse myself in the neighbourhood to gain an overview of where I was, what the neighbourhood was like, and to generate ideas or inspiration for making a start on delivering this project. A few weeks earlier, I’d been manually removing staples from documents in a backpacker sweatshop. Suddenly, here I am, cruising around western Sydney’s sunny suburbs in a close-to-brand-new Toyota Camry from the Council’s carpool.
This was the first time I’d driven in Australia. I felt overwhelmed, yet excited, by the street grid, wide roads, huge volumes of traffic, and the bright (yet low) winter sun, requiring constant use of the visor. These were pre-GPS-satellite-navigation days, so I needed the Sydney & Suburbs street directory as I explored my new territory. I had to pull over regularly to check where I was and to stay on course.
This was also the first time I’d explored a community in Australia with any kind of diversity or disadvantage. My exploration had been limited to the Sydney CBD, the leafy suburb of Pyrmont where I lived, and day trips to the Hunter Valley and the Blue Mountains. I’d also briefly travelled along the East Coast, including the tourist hotspots of Byron Bay and Surfers Paradise. But there my exploration was limited to bars, beaches, and burger joints!
I was immediately fascinated by the difference in housing stock. A comparable UK suburb would have very dense, high-rise Council housing. But here in Australia were pockets of high levels of deprivation in estates of detached government housing -some with gardens on quarter-acre blocks! As I drove around, I soon noticed visible signs of unemployment, crime, poverty, and more. I learned that that deprivation could exist even in the presence of ample space and glorious sunshine.
Taking detailed notes, I found community centres, churches, schools, cafes, shopping centres, parks, and childcare centres. I observed bus stops, bus routes, and train stations. I noted areas where I saw graffiti, abandoned shopping trolleys. I searched for street furniture with shade or drinking water fountains. I studied community noticeboards, which are always guaranteed to provide glimpses into community life, wherever in the world they are.
I now call this my ‘community immersion process’ and I undertake it on any project with a new community. It’s my critical exercise in learning about the people who live there and understanding how they live. Of course, most of my observations are assumptions initially and they may not influence the final project plan. Nevertheless, it’s critical for an engagement practitioner to try to understand what makes a community tick. I see this process as our obligation to that community. And we need to do that even if it makes us feel uncomfortable.
My fascination with how a community looks and feels, and how the people interact or move around it helped me, no end. My immersive exploration led me to a community hall that offered social programs for older people, luckily, as my objective was to engage older people about their perceptions of safety. And, as my Gloucester community health promotion days taught me, working with organisations to reach a target group makes a lot of sense. My initial conversations revealed that the organisation was totally open to changes in their activity program. So I immediately had fifteen older people eager for conversations about safety. Tick!
But how could I make this project ‘creative’, as per my brief? I was also involved with other arts and culture groups and networks within the Parramatta area and I’d heard about a woman who was a creative writer… and she ran workshops… and my mind went into solution-focused overdrive. So, we organised for the creative writing specialist and me to run a creative writing workshop in the community hall with older people. I remember explaining who I was and what we were doing and seeing so many eyes watching with anticipation. I sensed both their wisdom and experience, as well as their fragility and vulnerability.
Working in pairs, the creative writer suggested we brainstorm participants’ meaning of neighbourhood safety. After more workshopping, we began to turn ideas into stories, which the participants then shared.
I was still in my early twenties, so I didn’t have many benchmarks. But the richness of the response astonished me. Our highly effective approach was exceptional for gaining high-quality contributions to the overall neighbourhood regeneration process. And our participants were some of the community’s most vulnerable members. For example, there was Ynette. I’d expected that Ynette, the woman I was paired with, to say things about police presence, better lighting, or fewer young people hanging around in large numbers. At least, I thought that these were typical responses that we might elicit using conventional engagement tools. Ynette had different ideas altogether. Feeling safe came down to something as simple as the emergency call button she wore around her neck at home. She told a story about falling and being unable to get up. And how the little button had saved the day. And possibly saved her life.
Another participant spoke about being able to easily use the disabled parking spaces outside the shops. No hard-hitting crime worries here, simply the ability to go about his day comfortably and easily, doing what he needed to do. There was a richness to the texture of the stories we heard. Nobody wanted to leave. So we stayed for tea and cake and a demonstration of their indoor bowls prowess.
I had also found an opportunity to engage creatively with young people on this project. Working with Council’s youth workers, nine local young people, representing a diverse mix of cultural backgrounds, attended a song-writing workshop facilitated by a professional musician. The workshop began with a general brainstorming regarding participants’ impressions of safety in Granville. Then they turned their ideas into music and lyrics. Suddenly the project had a theme tune written by local young people!
Again, the contributions and insights we gathered by taking creative approaches provided a richness that amazed me. I could not imagine gaining such insights via surveys or public meetings.
We went from strength to strength. For the reporting-back stage, I hired a local filmmaker to capture both the processes and the outcomes in a short film. That way, Council decision makers heard first-hand local people’s perceptions of safety. And in those days, it was not nearly as easy as it is today to report back via video. Creative community engagement can benefit from smartphones and apps for video editing, yet creative reporting back is still relatively rare. We must never underestimate the creative art of storytelling, whatever the medium: through written word or song, or whatever. It is an incredibly valuable tool for gathering community insights.
I have always imagined that, as a left-hander, creativity comes naturally to me. Apparently, it’s something to do with the hemispheres of the brain. My creative side is certainly linked up. As a bonus, I’m ambidextrous: I write (and iron!) with my left hand but do everything else with my stronger, dominant right hand. My theory is that this gives me the creative attributes of a left-hander, combined with the logical, straightforward thinking of a right-hander.
This morning, for example, a colleague who’s planning to attend my training session tomorrow sent an SMS saying how excited she was about my pre-workshop email which featured the analogy of boarding a flight to present the information for joining the online session. I’ve found the simpler the creativity, the better. In these times, there’s so much dry content around that people jump up and down with excitement at even the simplest play on words. And all the white noise in the world means that communicating as simply and creatively as you can is a bonus.
Conversation Starters
WHO is the most creative person in your team or your community? How could they be involved to enhance your community engagement practice?
WHAT could you do to make reporting processes more creative?
WHY don’t we apply creativity and innovation to all of our community engagement practice? What stops us?
WHEN have you worked creatively? Or witnessed creativity in your own community?
WHERE have you been that is on the beaten track, and where