Year: 2020
Project(s):
Relevance
Engaging with stakeholders about the increasing risks to their communities is vital to developing an informed citizenry and resilient society. However, this kind of communication and engagement is a significant challenge for many resilience practitioners and can result in confusion or, at its worse, mistrust. As a public-facing and public-serving government entity, Santa Rosa County is especially aware of the importance of the quality of its engagement and sought to improve its capacity.
Response
Sentinel Site Cooperative, Santa Rosa County brought together a team of internal staff and external organizations whose work overlaps in the community resilience sector. Facilitators from the University of Florida/Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Extension’s CIVIC program trained the practitioners on deliberative engagement, using an advanced two-part training and resources to enable effective communication and engagement on resilience issues.
Results
Santa Rosa County and its local partner organizations now feel that they have the capacity to better engage with their communities. This was put into practice when, after taking the training, the team led a virtual community engagement meeting and dialogue in Santa Rosa County. The county was able to use their CIVIC training to effectively introduce a new flood vulnerability assessment tool to their residents and successfully navigate concerns, questions and feedback.
Recap
Site Cooperative, Santa Rosa County, Florida, and partners hosted a Community Voices Informed Choices training that enabled practitioners to better perform community open dialogue events and interact more effectively with their citizenry. (2020)