NCI Cross-disciplinary Public Involvement Forum
Support Provided in Part by a Grant from
the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
In
October of 2003, a unique event took place at the Princeton offices of the
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Experienced leaders from a range of disciplines
came together to discuss best practices in public involvement and collaborative
decision-making processes. For the first time ever, professionals from the
fields of Public Health and Safety, Land Use and Transportation Planning,
Restorative and Community Justice, Community and Political Process, and Facilitation
and Collaborative Organizational Management met to discuss the challenges
they face in their efforts to improve the health of communities through collaborative
efforts. Participants represented diverse organizations including AmericaSpeaks,
the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Interaction Associates, The Great
Valley Center, and The RAND Institute.
At a critical moment in time – when grassroots efforts have the ability
to make or break an attempt to change a community
– these leaders convened to discuss ways to make the practice
of community involvement better. Three key agreements rose to
the top of the conversation quickly: 1) collaborative public
involvement is essential to community change efforts, 2) there
are both principles and challenges that are common to any community
change effort, and therefore 3) resources should be dedicated
to institutionalizing and supporting collaborative public involvement.
The
goals and specific problems faced by the range of disciplines
vary, as do the populations they serve, but the common challenges
to public process and collaborative decision-making were prevalent
across fields. By looking at these common challenges and considering
common solutions to public involvement efforts across distinctly
different fields of practice, we can better understand obstacles
to community involvement in general and address these challenges
with comprehensive solutions to benefit the practice for all
collaborative efforts.
The Public Involvement Best Practices Forum was convened by the National Charrette
Institute (NCI) and sponsored by a generous grant from the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation. The purpose of the event was to bring together successful practitioners
from the above-mentioned disciplines to learn from each other and discover commonalities
in their collaborative, community-based change efforts. Why was community-based
planning, or public involvement, the topic of this forum? The premise was that
professionals in many fields who are working to improve the health and well-being
of communities are learning that lasting change can be achieved through shared
understanding and support for solutions. This shared understanding and support
for change within a community can be successfully facilitated through collaborative
public involvement processes.
More
specifically, public involvement and collaborative decision-making
processes are becoming inevitable in the development of solutions
to a variety of issues across the country. In some fields, such
as land use planning and design, public involvement is becoming
a legal requirement in a number of communities and is seeing
increased grassroots, community-based engagement in others. In
other fields, such as community justice and public health, community
collaboration is a necessity. As Dr. Michael Stoto writes, “most
health problems require community-based solutions.” Given
the complexity of issues facing communities today and the finite
supply of resources, many practitioners involved in community
change efforts are finding that broad-based public involvement
and community-based solutions may be the only means for successfully
improving the health and well-being of communities.
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a PDF of the complete final report (PDF)