Dudley Strategy for Tackling Health Inequalities 2010-15

6. COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENTCommunity EngagementThe very process of community engagement, when done well and appropriately, cancontribute beneficially to people‟s health and well-being. In short, communityengagement is a healthy activity.BackgroundEngaging and empowering local people and groups has been a requirement of localpublic sector bodies and councils for some time now. Recently the Strong andProsperous Communities, The Local Government White Paper (Great Britain.Department of Health, 2006) has called for a „more comprehensive approach toengagement‟ and Communities in control. Real people, real power (Communitiesand Local Government, 2008) continued this theme calling on Local StrategicPartnerships to „streamline consultation and engagement‟.The Marmot Review (2010) puts empowerment of individuals and communities at thecentre of action to reduce health inequalities.‟ It goes on to say that „there needs tobe a more systematic approach to engaging communities for Local StrategicPartnerships at both district and neighbourhood levels, moving beyond often routine,brief consultations to effective participation in which individuals and communitiesdefine the problems and develop community solutions.An empowering approach to engaging communitiesIn Dudley, a multi-agency programme of work called „In it together‟ (DudleyCommunity Partnership, 2010) was initiated in 2007, led by Dosti, Dudley‟sCommunity Empowerment Network. Over 250 local people, primarily drawn fromDudley‟s voluntary, community and faith sector networks contributed to an initialdiscussion and consultation document which explored the issues at the heart ofcommunity engagement. Following this, 92 professionals participated in workshopsto help shape a local community engagement training and support package.„In it together‟ is a partnership approach to empowering community engagement. Itencourages and supports organisations and people to bring together theircommunity engagement work and plans, to enable them to move beyondconsultation and jointly deliver/facilitate meaningful and empowering communityengagement activity. An empowering community engagement approach facilitatesparticipation and promotes inclusion, and thus acts as a protective factor for mentalwell-being (NMHDU, 2010)Dudley Community Partnership agency leads, including the Health and WellbeingPartnership, have signed up to and fully endorsed the „In it together‟ workprogramme which encompasses the following:A Comprehensive Community Engagement Strategy (Pendry, Prescot andPritchard, 2009) – written as an interactive document and tailored into four56