Community Participation Strategy refresh
About our Community Participation Strategy refresh
At Barnet, one of our top priorities is always working with our communities. We want to empower our communities and work in partnerships on things they care about. That is why community participation is so important and why we are continuously refreshing our approaches across the council, as well as thinking of new, exciting and inclusive ways to involve our residents in having a say and shaping the things that we do. We launched the community participation strategy last year and we have a new administration who is committed to continuous community participation and engagement which means now is a good time to refresh our approaches and we need your help to do this.
Why is community participation important?
- involving communities can help them to flourish, be happier and healthier
- communities have insight into their own needs, and they know what is best for them; having influence over decisions that affect their lives is fundamental to tackling challenges
- communities have the knowledge and assets; working with them, facilitating discussions, and enabling action can build resilience and confidence to create better neighbourhoods.
To refresh our organisation-wide community participation strategy, we are launching an interactive map that will be open for everyone to use and input to enable better cross-organisational working.
We want to hear from you about which communities you have a relationship with, how you engage with them or how they participate in shaping services or delivering activities. We want to know:
- who are we (the council) connected to?
- what else do we need to connect to across Barnet?
- what best practices do you use to engage and participate with residents and communities?
Click the maps tab below to include a community you have been working with or heard about and would like to connect to. You can also share your stories about working with communities below.
Mapping our communities
You can use this map by clicking on the pin that describes the group you and your service are connected to, and dragging it onto a location on the map that they are most connected to. You will then be asked a few questions about the residents or communities before you can complete dropping your pin. It should take less than two minutes to complete each pin.
The purpose of the community map is for all Barnet staff to access information about communities across the borough to enable us to work effectively with people across the borough. We would like to hear from teams across the council about how you have:
- communicated with residents on local changes or issues
- worked in partnership with communities and residents to co-design a service, strategy or policy
- involved residents in participation activities (including everything from litter picking to greening your local high street to running a community event).
This map is available for everyone to share, access and collaborate on work related to our communities. We encourage everyone to add information on communities you engage with at a locality-based level. This might include:
- a network of individuals collaborating more or less formally to achieve a shared, socially beneficial goal such as tackling food poverty through a food bank
- people who are connected based on a common skill or hobby (e.g. a sports or art club)
- people who identify with each other based on a shared characteristic(s) (e.g. race, sexuality, disability, age)
- a geographical place (a place where people come together, often delineated by a landmark, e.g. park or a tube station rather than a ward)
- it could also be communities united in other ways, for example, those with a shared medical condition.
Barnet Council staff told us what communities means to them personally
Barnet Council staff told us what communities means to them personally
Click the image to find out more about community participation and engagement
Click the image to find out more about community participation and engagement
For further information on this project please contact:
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Consultation and Engagement Team
