Engagement with the community can take many forms, and an engagement process needs the right tools for the right audience. The tools and techniques used can be explorative, decision making or involve collaborative problem solving.

A number of deliberative processes are introduced below to help with deciding, designing and delivering democratic community engagement. Deliberation is about long and careful consideration or discussion.

When selecting deliberative techniques and tools it is important to consider what it is we are trying to achieve. We need to allow for exploration of ideas and information if we want people to learn about issues, themselves, and others. We also need to provide structure to support people in decision making and opportunities for people to come together in collaborative problem-solving.

Explore the Engagement tools.