Professional Certificate in Public Engagement For Local Government

This introductory session sets the context for a deep dive into public engagement by offering an overview of the current state of public engagement factoring in current events and providing a shared understanding and framework. It also invites participants to consider what level of engagement is appropriate to the issue at hand and consider pitfalls to effective engagement.

Key concepts:

• Why Public Engagement? Why Now?
• Roles (customer v. partner)
• Shared definitions & matching process to purpose
• Government as Decider v. Convener
• Five questions to answer before embarking on planning a public engagement process

This session takes a look at preparing for and having difficult conversations between communities and local governments through the lens of emotional intelligence. Participants learn strategies for preparing themselves and their teams, managing emotions and the emotions of others and practital tips on facilitating when things are tough or uncertain.

Key Concepts:

• Defining Emotional Intelligence
• Information vs Emotion Connection
• Handling your emotions
• Preparing your team
• Best practices for managing emotion and outrage

This workshop invites participants to explore public engagement beyond the usual suspects or "STP"s (Same Twenty People) and develop strategies for engaging communities that are currently underserved based on factors such as race, wealth, immigration status, orientation, etc. In addition to the role perspective plays in perception, participants will explore how traditional processes tend to reinforce racial inequity factors, and will receive practical tips for both outreach and process design that can help to build equity and inclusion within their community. The session will also look at the challenges in facilitating constructive engagement on sensitive issues, including appropriate responses to disruption and emotion. Participants will leave with a foundation in how to think about the impact that differences in culture have on public engagement and how to look for ways to better understand demographics other than our own.

Key Concepts:

• Best Practices in effective outreach to underserved communities
• Creating inclusive space for diversity and identifying reasons some groups are underserved.
• Understand who is in your community, identify who you may not be hearing from and issues that matter to communities facing equity issues of access, service, treatment, voice, influence
• Recognize the need for cultural competency across a variety of factors (race, country of origin, socio-economic, political, gender, age) and learn how to develop these.

As data-driven decision-making continues to grow as an approach in local government, we must ensure that sensors and AI do not entirely replace community engagement. Technology can be a great asset to enhancing a local government's ability to be efficient and effective, but when it comes to public engagement, we must be careful about how technology is applied and how we derive conclusions from the data. As we incorporate more and more technology in our local government work, how are we seeking to strike a balance between community input and data?

Key Concepts:

• How Governments Use Data & Technology
• Can Data & Technology Improve Community Input/Engagement?
• Barriers/Risks in Adopting These New Approaches 

This session brings together the previous sessions and connects them with innovative ways that local government leaders become true public engagement leaders within their organizations.  Using case studies and real life examples, participants also learn about tools and technology for becoming public engagement champions in their communities whatever their job title.

Key Concepts:

• Why leadership matters
• Qualities of a public engagement leader
• Innovation in public engagement  - tools & technology
• How to apply public engagement concepts and theories to real-time use-cases

Participants will be placed in small groups and matched with a Davenport Institute Advisory Council Member or Certificate Alumni to talk through the engagement action plan they have developed. This will be informal and scheduled at the group's convenience.