Materials and Messaging

Based on the type of engagement undertaken, planning partners may need to develop supporting materials to share information about their work and to guide their discussions. Materials should strive to focus the discussions to achieve the intended objectives of the engagement sessions, and may include some key messages about the community's work that they want people to hear and remember. Regardless of the audience, partners to the plan should develop basic, consistent information to share with everyone to ensure they understand what is being done, why they are a part of it, and what comes next. It will be important to ensure that materials and messages are developed in a way that manages the expectations of community members – be clear about what can be achieved and what is unachievable within the timeframe and resources.

With that, planning partners should ensure that all materials and messaging are accessible to a wide range of audiences, so that everyone is able to receive or provide information in a fair manner. For additional information, please refer to the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005.

Logistics

When engaging the community, it will be important to have logistics sorted out so that the individuals/groups targeted are able to attend/participate. To do this, planning partners may want to consider the following:

• scheduling (e.g., How many community engagement sessions are being held? How far apart should they be scheduled? What time of day should they be scheduled?);
• finances (e.g., Is there a cost associated with the meeting space? Will there be snacks and refreshments?);
• travel accommodations (e.g., How will individuals get to the community engagement sessions? Is it being held in an accessible location? Will hotel arrangements be required?);
• administration (e.g., consider circulating an attendance list to get names and agency/organization and contact details, assign someone to take notes on what is being said at each session); and
• accessibility issues/barriers to accessibility (e.g., information or communication barriers, technology barriers and physical barriers).

Risks and Implications

While community engagement should be a key factor of local plans, some planning partners may encounter difficulties, such as resistance from certain individuals or groups. To overcome these challenges, they should anticipate as many risks as possible, identify their implications and develop mitigation strategies to minimize the impact of each risk. This exercise should also be done when developing communication materials, including identifying potential risks to certain messaging. This may be done by using a chart such as the one below.