Expanding Your Community's Engagement in PSN

Community engagement in PSN can be broken down into a step-by-step process, drawing on successful strategies seen in PSN and other violence reduction efforts. Experienced PSN task forces suggest that it is the process of engaging a community that's critical, rather than the immediate outcome: get people talking, ask the community what is needed, and be willing to follow up.

A community engagement model for PSN can be envisioned as having four components—assessment, mobilization, planning, and implementation. Steps commonly associated with each component are reviewed briefly below. The boundaries between the four components, however, are not strictly drawn, and the steps do not have to be taken in the order presented to be effective. For example, effective assessments often “mobilize” task force members, researchers, and community members to help analyze problems and identify resources; and initial steps toward implementation—at a minimum, increased awareness through PSN media campaigns—have been taken in all jurisdictions.

Assessment

(1) Define your community.

Task forces that are actively engaging the community in PSN often recommend the following:

• Think in terms of which are the most common victims and perpetrators of gun crime. For example, the Southern District of Indiana used a strategic planning process to determine that its primary audience was African American males ages 16-24 in Marion County (Indianapolis); the secondary audience was the people who have influence over the primary audience (e.g., mothers, clergy, neighbors); and the tertiary audience was the broader community (see diagram below).¹²
  
  



• Use data from official and non-traditional sources to better define your community. The nature of gun crime is not the same in every jurisdiction; community members and researchers have an important role to play in analyzing and interpreting data.

(2) Identify community assets.

Rather than focusing solely on problems and needs, think about the internal strengths of the community. For example, what institutions, associations, and individual leaders are located in the community? What stake do they have in the success of PSN's gun crime reduction efforts? To facilitate this assessment, some community planners develop “asset maps” as part of identifying a community's strengths. Essentially, the asset mapping process encourages thinking about several types of resources or building blocks:

• Capacities within the community and under community control (individuals, local organizations, individual businesses)
  
  
• Resources located within the community but largely controlled by people outside the community (e.g., schools, hospitals, recreation centers, service agencies, vacant land and buildings)
  
  
• Potential building blocks not located in the community and controlled by people outside the community (e.g., business organizations, some government and service agencies, arts organizations, service clubs).

(3) Assess community readiness.

This step is similar to identifying community assets, but it goes further toward determining how to engage the community by focusing on where the community is now with regard to reducing gun crime. For example:

• What are the community's existing violence prevention and intervention efforts?
  
  
• What is the community's level of knowledge about those efforts?
  
  
• What is the status of needed services in the community? Are there long waiting lists for services? Are some programs underused?
  
  
• Who are the official and informal leaders of the community?
  
  
• What is known about the social climate or culture of the community?

(4) Conduct a community engagement self-assessment.

This step is a systematic way of looking at where the PSN task force is now with respect to community engagement, where it wants to be, and who can help it get there. The Community Engagement Self-Assessment Guide provided in the Appendix can be used to help consider:

• Which sectors of the community (criminal justice partners, offender populations, community- and faith-based groups, service agencies, etc.) are already involved in PSN?
  
  
• Which groups should be involved?
  
  
• In what ways could various groups become involved (by joining the PSN task force or a subcommittee, delivering PSN messages, co-sponsoring activities, etc.)?

The experiences of the SACSI sites and other PSN forerunners suggest several additional questions to consider in assessing which groups and individuals might get involved:

• Will their participation help design more effective enforcement approaches?
  
  
• Can they help address disapproval of or misunderstandings about aggressive law enforcement and prosecution strategies?
  
  
• Do they have a unique connection with the offender population? With family members and other community members likely to have a direct influence on offenders' behavior? With at-risk youth?
  
  
• Can they provide intelligence or perspectives not available from existing partners?

The Self-Assessment Guide may be most valuable when thinking about specific neighborhood(s) at which to target PSN interventions, but it can also be used when considering an entire jurisdiction or a problem (such as domestic violence) that is not neighborhood-specific.

Mobilization

Mobilization has to do with getting the right people to participate. This can be a challenge for an agency that has not traditionally focused on engaging the community. Typically, outreach to some groups will take considerable planning, but other resources may be just a phone call away.

(5) Start with your current partners.

As discussed earlier, local and state partners like police, prosecutors, and probation/parole have become much more neighborhood-oriented than in the past. Those agencies and other institutions (e.g., schools, recreation department, a ministerial alliance) can be asked for information and contacts. The district's Weed & Seed initiatives are likely to have already engaged community groups that share PSN goals (e.g., through community policing and sometimes community prosecution efforts). The majority of PSN task forces that are currently collaborating with the community are closely allied with Weed & Seed.

(6) Apply principles of effective community engagement.

The Appendix includes selected articles and other resources that discuss community engagement principles from a variety of perspectives. Some of the most important principles for PSN community engagement are these:

• Develop community-specific strategies. What are the community's specific concerns? What is already under way? How can those efforts be supported?
  
  
• Build credibility with community members and decision makers. Key to this is having diverse participants and a balanced leadership. Involving a neutral meeting facilitator or “broker” is often effective in achieving this goal.
  
  
• Ensure diverse participation. This usually requires “active outreach” that goes beyond distributing fliers to include more personalized approaches (e.g., extending invitations through partner organizations working in the community).
  
  
• Establish an informed dialogue. Provide detailed background information. Involve experts in the issues at hand.
  
  
• Go to the community. Hold meetings in the community. Offer hospitality (e.g., food, child care, parking). Send the right representatives—people who know how to listen and can follow up.
  
  
• Influence decision-making. Invite decision-makers as participants. Make sure community voices are heard.
  
  
• Sustain community engagement. Form ongoing committees or teams. Support community leadership.

Planning and Implementation

(7) Develop a structure for community involvement.

Just as there is no formula for who to involve in PSN, there is no prescription for what type of structure will work best to sustain community involvement. In general, small, homogeneous task forces can make decisions more quickly, but broad-based teams offer significant advantages, including:

• A diversity of perspectives and approaches
  
  
• A greater ability to layer the PSN message—deliver it through multiple means and from multiple sources (e.g., law enforcement, service providers, community leaders)
  
  
• Broader support in the face of negative media, community, or political reactions

Each PSN task force has the flexibility to start small and expand gradually or begin with a large team. Some community members may be part of the PSN task force; others may lead or serve on a subcommittee; others may be involved only in a particular event or activity. The important point is to plan how you will follow up on expressions of interest and support.

(8) Link media outreach with community engagement

It may be time to supplement existing media campaigns with additional, targeted media outreach that supports your community engagement goals. What PSN success stories need to be told from a human interest point of view? Can media outreach activities be used as a vehicle to engage youth in PSN? How can creative uses of the media help attract diverse audiences to community forums?

Implementation

(9) Develop an action plan for priority activities.

The groundwork for selecting community engagement priorities is laid by defining community, identifying community assets, and conducting a self-assessment of current and desired levels of community engagement. An action plan can then be developed and implemented over a specified period (e.g., one year). Built into the action plan should be strategies for marketing or publicizing events, acknowledgment of the community's role in successful efforts, and an evaluation process. Evaluation should be ongoing, and it should involve the community, but it does not have to be complex—it may simply be a matter of de-briefing after major activities have been completed, or regularly reviewing progress toward reaching milestones. Implementation also involves maintenance of a structure that allows for mid-course adjustments and continued planning, including exploration of funding sources.