Inspiring Community Action Dialogues

Inspiring Action.has moved the Inspiring Education Dialogue closer to a new school act for Alberta  (read the one page preamble) and a plan for education for the next 20 years.  Many Albertans wants the dialogue to continue but how and who will participate is evolving.  In relationship to other public engagement exercises, a large number of Albertan's have been involved.  In relationship to the dream we have and the action needed, a relatively few people has been involved, especially at the local community level.  Will more people be involved in the dialogue or will everyone go back to business as usual and let a few people and/or representatives from various stakeholders participate for them at the provincial level?

In this post, we will examine, what has taken place at the local community level, dialogue principles for community (whole community not just the school community) involvement,  and possibilities for moving Towards Generative Community Dialogues.

Inspiring Education (Action) Community Level Involvement:

The most comprehensive local community involvement was the use of the Inspiring Education Community Conversation Kit in the early stages of Inspiring Education: A Dialogue with Albertans .  Also see Local Conversations May - June 09  for blog versions using the community conversation kit.  Building on this experience we participated in the Inspiring Action online dialogue as a group using a school computer lab.  The framework for the new school act also emphasizes community involvement see Whole Community Engagment in Education Act 2011 Proposed Framework October 7, 2010
 
Dialogue Principles for Community Dialogue Involvement:

Recently we have been looking at COMMUNITY ACTION DIALOGUES  website.  The principles of dialogue outlined on their site could form the basis for community dialogues which follow-up Inspiring Education/Action and other topics of interest at the community level.  For community dialogues to bring community action, there needs to be a way of having these dialogues become part of an ongoing public engagement strategy.  A dialogue on the principles and experiences from Inspiring Education/Action could be used to initiate development of this strategy.  The strategy needs to go beyond Inspiring Education/Action to public engagement with the whole community on topics that affect the community.  See DIALOGUE LINKS for more background.

Our experience with developing and following up the Tri-Smart proposal illustrates the process and the need for an integrated community approach to public engagement.  The Tri-Smart proposal was a proposal developed in 1999 to get 1/2 million in federal government funding to develop smart community technology in the tri-municipalities of Spruce Grove, Stony Plain and Parkland county.  The proposal was funded by the three municipalities, two school boards, two chambers of commerce and the local health authority.  Once we were selected as one of the finalists for Alberta, the whole community got involved, including the University of Alberta and others outside of the community, each contributing something to match the government funding.   When we did not get the government funding, the committee tried, in vain, to get support for a scaled down version of the proposal to share resources, which ultimately could have been less expensive than  each organization developing the technology and infrastructure on their own and could have benefited the community more.than the current systems developed independently by each organization.   A group of us followed up on one aspect of the proposal in conjunction with our MLA to develop a network of organizations to work together for the benefit of children in our community.  The schools did not get involved in this network and we failed to get public engagement. as a result the MLA continued to network with the organizations and FACTSnet  was born to continue seeking ways to Unite for Children.

Moving Toward Community Action Dialogue:

The principles and experiences mentioned above illustrate the potential and difficulties we face in getting sustained public engagement leading to public action.  The vision developed through Inspiring Education/Action needs this kind of engagement to have the maximum impact for generations to come.  The future of our children and our future is of much more value than 1/2 million dollars for a smart community but it does not have the urgency for organizational and public engagement that the Tri-Smart proposal had.  It seems that a coordinated approach to public engagement,  like that of Tri-Smart, is needed so that whole community is involved.  The strategy to achieve this needs to involve sustained public engagement.  The current uncoordinated systems of each organization (schools, school boards, municipalities etc,) asking for public engagement, with dialogue taking place in an adhoc manner facilitated by public engagement consultants could be replaced by ongoing generative dialogue and public engagement similar to what has happened with Inspiring Education/Action.  See Inspiring Educational and Heritage Dialogues for some suggestions on how we might proceed.