When it comes to community engagement efforts in the face of inflation and rising living costs in Melbourne, it’s crucial to be conscious and mindful of the community’s needs and challenges. Here are some friendly tips to help you (and us) navigate this situation.

Ah, the allure of celebrity endorsements and its impact on community engagement! We rarely see celebrities endorsing community engagement projects, but what if they did? 

When it comes to community engagement as an industry, there’s no doubt that the rising living costs, increases in minimum wage, and inflation in Melbourne can have an impact. However, let’s take a friendly and optimistic perspective on this.

Engaging with those that provide care and support can provide a rich and diverse perspective to any project where there is a need to better understand how to support both an individual accessing health services and the support needed for carers. This carers week, have a think about how you can engage and include the voice of caregivers in any projects. 

Engaging with caregivers is an essential part of any community development project. Carers have a unique understanding of the strengths, needs and aspirations of the people they care for. They are highly skilled people who have knowledge of the day to day lives of target groups.  They reflect on trends and influences and understand how decision makers, governments and policy can impact experiences first hand. In short, they are a wealth of knowledge and expertise for making social change, developing strategies and delivering meaningful impact. 

Some of our favourite engagement projects are centred on the contribution of kids and their caregivers. They always bring fun, colour and random creativity to a project from suggestions for a cats and dogs olympics under the proposed raised rail in Merri-bek City Council, a free goldfish giveaway for residents of Whittlesea to support the Domestic Animal Management Policy and an all animal school zoo to send domestic animals to during the day to support native biodiversity in Melbourne’s West. It is worth mentioning the latter two suggestions were the ideas of caregivers inspired by their kids. 

Participating in community engagement activities, whether they are online or in-person can be tough for those caring for another person. So in our line of work, it is important to consider the needs of these individuals to ensure that, regardless of their busy schedule, they too have a chance to have their say.

There may be times when you become aware of a brewing crisis before it becomes public or you could be contacted by media for comment about it. Either way, you need to be prepared for how to handle the situation. It’s important to not ignore it, but rather address it and be as open and honest about the situation.

In a municipality that is home to over 100,000 human residents and 8000 four-legged residents (sharing only 353 hectares of open space), conversations about the management of shared spaces is not a new one for the City of Port Phillip. 

Sometimes, engaging with communities can be a difficult and complex process. Sometimes, we don’t get the results we planned for. Sometimes, the community can tell us things that are ‘out of scope’ or ‘not relevant’ to project outcomes. Sometimes, projects that seem relatively straightforward can trigger conversations about deeper, more complex or nuanced issues in communities. Sometimes, these results can seem like a whole lot of extra work or an engagement program that doesn’t ‘create value’.

We’d love this resource to be shared by project teams to aid participation in their consultation and engagement processes, and by community groups wanting to make changes in their local communities.

Late last year, Conversation Co had the privilege to work with the Graduate Student Association at the University of Melbourne. The purpose of our project was to understand the strengths of graduate students and researchers and the challenges they face while completing PhDs and Masters by Research to advocate for improved supervision, processes and University support. 

Pop-up events take a project to the places and spaces your community already use. This is an opportunity to reach a broad sample of people, but only if they feel safe and welcome to participate.

Yarra Park is one of Melbourne’s premier public parklands, it also provides the setting for the major sporting facilities of the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) and the Richmond Cricket Ground/Punt Road Oval. Together, the parkland and surrounding facilities provide important social, economic and environmental benefits to Victorians. Yarra Park also has a significant indigenous cultural heritage and is noted for its landscape and sporting heritage.