BLOG - Community engagement: the devil is in the detail

Community engagement is based on the democratic idea that people affected by an issue impacting their lives or local place should have a significant say in the decision-making around it.

The ambition is to ensure public participation can influence decisions that affect the provision of services, future visions and sustainability of local communities.

Active Black Country’s shared vision is to see a future Black Country where all ages, abilities and backgrounds are able to be active, move and play sport.

Our Board believes that physical activity and sport have the power to change and improve people’s lives, and it is everyone’s right to be active and play sport.

Beyond the research available that evidences the benefits of an active lifestyle, Professor Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer for England, who we heard from daily between March 2020 and April 2021 during the Covid pandemic, has said “there is no situation, no age and no condition where exercise is not a good thing”.

Currently in the Black Country there are pre-existing inequalities that mean the local people who will gain the most benefit from being active and moving more are currently least able to realise them.

Better understanding lived experiences

With so many factors impacting on people’s ability to be physically active, we need to deepen our understanding of the lived experiences in communities and base this at the heart of decision-making to support people to lead a more active lifestyle.

We refer to professions such a law or medicine as ‘practicing’ i.e. always seeking to learn and apply that learning to develop and grow. A similar perspective needs to be applied to community engagement, through practicing and viewing it as a series of related discussions not stand-alone approaches or exercises.

A series of conversations over time can create a shared vision for a community's future, a group, a place or places. Working together with a common goal, we can start to align priorities and resources that create an environment that fosters moving more as an easier choice to make, empowering people into action.

Existing insight tells us that both the inhibiting and enabling influences will probably always centre around some significant and consistent factors – safety, cost, accessibility, knowledge, time, and space.

However, we can only truly understand how they combine to prevent Black Country communities from moving more or being active by getting as close as possible to peoples’ lives and going as local as possible.

Umbrella bodies and membership groups often have some really great knowledge but occasionally organisational agendas can cloud the relationship – which in turn focuses attention to resource.

Huge community engagement initiative

Local organisations know communities and local people best. Faith-based groups and places of faith are a great example of this. Often, they serve as the backbone of local communities, supporting people day to day by hosting activities, providing advice, and bringing people together from all backgrounds. They play a crucial role in identifying those in need of support and helping them to access it.

Simplicity should be a design goal to drive engagement to really reach inside communities and make sure seldom heard groups have a stronger voice and can fully participate and thrive.

Community engagement and improving collaboration are among the hot topics of discussion at the Changing Lives Through Movement conference on Friday at Molineux Stadium in Wolverhampton.

As we head into 2025, Active Black Country will be working with local partners, places and people to complete the most significant community engagement exercise that we have ever been involved with. Our specific purpose is to work with residents and groups of people, whether they are connected by place, interest or identity, to encourage them to participate in a series of discussions exploring how we can improve activity levels across the Black Country.

We know we will only be successful in realising a shared vision when the conditions are created for more harmonious collaboration and when the voices of our wonderful communities are better reflected in the decisions that impact people leading healthier, more active lifestyles.