June 11, 2003
Cultural Communities Seek Relationship Building and Cultural Specificity In Public Involvement
This morning at the Asian Family Center in NE Portland, yet another public involvement constituency discussion was held, this time including participants from the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon, the Latoni Network, the African Coalition, and the Slavic Coalition.
Overall, many issues raised in this constituency discussion were often similar to those raised in others. But two particular items stood out amongst them all: The need for ongoing relationship building between city staff and Portland's various ethnic and cultural communities; and the need for public involvement processes to become flexible enough to ecompass culturally-specific approaches.
Each of these aspects reflects common ground with other constituencies. Neighborhood representatives have commented upon the need for culturally-specific approaches, and several city staffers repeatedly singled out relationship building as necessary for proper public involvement.
At the start of the discussion, participants offered their views on what public involvement means to them. While the conversation began slowly, it took off fairly quickly once it got underway.
Beginning with what one might call "the basics" -- present things in a way people understand and can relate to; notify communities in advance; time and place for involvement is very important; involve the language and cultural characteristics of a community; ensure that the decision has not already been made (another common element amongst constituencies, except for city staff) -- the discussion moved into deeper ground.
One participant raised the matter of whether the entity asking for participation is willing to shift their approach. "Sometimes a government entity is approaching us with a request," they said, "but doesn't want to shift how that are going to do the presentation or the participatory piece." And this, they explained, made them "more cynical."
Another participant returned to the matter of presenting things in ways people can understand. "Often you have some incredibly complex and dull, dry subjects," they explained. "So you not only have to explain things in ways that are understandable, [but] you need to be brief about it, and lots of times it's difficult to summarize things in a way that the lay public can understand it and participate effectively."
Effectiveness was also mentioned in regards to feedback, as one participant stressed that it was important to understand the "history of responsiveness." In their words: "Have they responded before, meaning we're not wasting our time."
And then one of the big issues began to be discussed in earnest. One of the most important things was the "use of culturally-specific outreach approaches to bring people to meetings." In addition, the "availability of resources to support culturally-specific communities to do that kind of work." In other words, make available to existing community structures the resources necessary for them to help develop culturally-specific processes for public involvement -- rather than simply require the city itself to do all the work.
"If we're talking about targeting or involving communities that have not been historically involved," explained another participant, "there needs to be some flexibility with the process. One size doesn't fit all." Interestingly, this phrase was also used by city staffers. But, this participant continued, there shouldbe "no tokenism."
"[You need to make] sure that if you're inviting someone to the table, they are a full participant, and not [there] just because they are from a certain community or part of a quota."
Community outreach continued to inspire much comment.
"If you want to involve a community to participate," someone suggested, "then it's always useful to know methods and tools to reach out for that community." For example, some communities are reachable through newspapers, others through churches. In some communities, churches are not as influential as in others.
But even this matter of cultural specificity isn't necessarily as straightforward as it might sound, as one participant explained by saying that it's important to recognize "the diversity within culturally-specific communities. We're not all the same within our communities."
Some comments were similar to those heard in other constituency groups. There was an interest in people participating in public involvement being "proactive rather than just reactive." At the same time, another participant said the city should "be clear about the boundries or parameters of the decision."
"If there are some parameters," they explained, "be very clear about it [and] don't give the impression that there's more openness to input than there really is."
After this initial open discussion, participants broke into smaller groups to come up with answers to three questions, to be reported back to the entire group afterward.
First, participants determined that the following factors would make it easier for them to participate in a public involvement process:
Presenting and having dialogue in the community's native language. Evening and weekend meetings when people are available. A focus on a specific issue. Communicating to a community how the decision in question makes a difference to them. A structure that is representative and responsive to community input. Public involvement should not merely be information gathering. Do they really value the input of the community?
The issue needs to be interesting. The decision cannot already have been made, and change must be possible. A social setting would be more encouraging, and would be a chance to build communities. Children should be allowed. The location should be somewhere the community is already present.
Showing how the issue relates to the needs of the specific community. Time, location, and limited transportion need to be considered. Providing adequate resources to fund culturally-specific communities to do the public involvement. Defining qualifications for seeking such funding. Knowing how the result will be used by government agencies, and what the benefit to the community will be. Understanding the history between the community and government officials, and the sense of frustration in some communities.
Next, participants determined that these methods of receiving information would work for them:
There should be small group meetings to learn about issues. Utilize word of mouth and relationships to generate support and involvement. Strategy should involve mutimedia, pictures, graphs, charts, and not just words.
Word of mouth, personal contact, spending time in the community. Ongoing relationships. Actual public involvement meetings should be interactive and participatory. Visuals, audio, storytelling. Present in a way that the community can relate, and connect it to their personal lives.
Someone from governmental agencies should develop personal relationships with community leaders. Know the community leaders and ask them to be involved in the distribution of information and bring people to meetings. Train government staff in using these culturally-specific techniques. Churches and stores as avenues for distributing information.
Finally, participants were to determine for what kinds of activities and processes for public involvement they think the public involvement standards Task Force should create standards:
There should be a clear policy of committing dollars to do public involvement. Implementers of public involvement need to have the skills and abilities to do that work. Understand demographic changes of a community. Utilize existing structures. Research other models for civic participation.
Basic knowledge of a community. Flexibility in outreach. Identify communities with a stake and involve them from the beginning. Provide resources to that community to allow their involvement. Be honest about how information will be used and how the decision will impact on the community. Contact the leaders of the community.
Information should be recorded in a way that people can understand what input has been. Feedback into the community as to how their input was actually used. Culturally-specific city employees shouldbe hired, and community groups involved in the hiring process. City should contract with representatives from culturally-specific communities to help city staff develop effective involvement approaches. Culturally-specific training should be provided to government agencies, so they can learn what really works in culturally-specific communities, rather than simply bringing in approaches from other mainstream communities.
Originally, the intent had been for each group to select which of their answers to each of the three questions were most important to them. Instead, all of the elements of the discussion will be brought together and assembled in such a way that the group can get together for a second time and discuss that sort of prioritization.
Of the three constituency groups I've reported on thus far, this has been the only one to decide to reconvene at a later day to polish up the results of their discussion. They are, in fact, intending to generate a position paper to be delivered to the Task Force.
But, even now, it's clear to see what stands out, and where lies the common ground with other constituencies. As I said at the start, culturally-specific approaches have been mentioned before, as has the notion of ongoing relationship building.
One final note: Certainly striking was how oriented towards positive suggestion and constructive criticism was this session as compared to some of the others. While the neighborhoods didn't hesitate to express their frustrations with the city, and city staffers didn't hide their animosity towards neighborhood associations, this particular group of cultural and ethic communities seemed to relish the opportunity to provide clear input into how they believe public involvement could work. The difference in overall tone was impossible to miss.