How do I engage?

There are five basic principles that we believe are necessary for effective engagement. Keep these in mind when developing your engagement work programme!

1. Clarity	- be clear on the aims and what’s ‘up for grabs’
2. Integration	- join up the process so it feeds into the policy decision
3. Independence	- leads to trust in results and unbiased approach
4. Tailored	- use different methods together appropriately
5. Follow Through	- evaluate and demonstrate how results were used

You can find more about the principles in our Position on Engagement.

Tools

The following tools will help you meet these principles and structure your engagement programme appropriately:

	Planning Engagement Processes - an SDC guide: a step by step guide on why to engage, who with, and how		Deliberative Public Engagement Principles: Involve and the NCC’s nine key principles to support deliberative engagement in public policy.
	Engagement and the policy making cycle – shows how and where engagement should fit within the policy-making process		Typology of engagement – explains the different types of engagement and what methods can achieve what outcomes

Further Guidance

	People & Participation – An interactive website that helps you choose the most appropriate engagement method. Also has case studies, news, events and ask an expert feature		Evaluation Guide – guidance produced by Involve, Shared Practice and MoJ to guide you through every stage of the evaluation process
			Digital Dialogues 2 – The Hansard Society’s study into how to effectively engage online
			Nice Guidelines – to support those working with and involving communities in decisions on health improvement