Partnership Working and Community Engagement

Location:

Date:

Topic of the Meeting:

Bowness-on-Windermere, Lake District National Park, England, UK

18 - 22 February 2013

Partnership Working and Community Engagement

The third project meeting took place in Bowness-on-Windermere, located in the Lake District National Park in England. The meeting was organised by the UK partner organisation Environment Agency in cooperation with the National Trust, the Lake District National Park Authority, Freshwater Biological Association and University of Cumbria.

The main objectives for the visit were to:

• Look at how to build and maintain partnerships to deliver environmental outcomes
• Explore the importance of pitching a partnership at the right level, with the right people around the table and other contributing factors to successful partnerships
• Consider what makes an ineffective partnership and discuss examples where partnerships haven’t worked or are not the most effective approach
• Explore how to engage the community; techniques, challenges, benefits etc.
• Take the European visitors out and about to see the lake environment in an interactive way. Numerous presentations about partnerships and projects to involve the local community in lake protection were held by the different partnership participants. In addition, the group took part in a number of site visits within the Lake District National Park in order to see some catchment management issues as well as examples of partnership working and community engagement in practice.

The major outcomes of the partnership meeting was the compilation of

1) things to consider

and

2) things to avoid when working in partnerships.

1) Things to consider when working in partnerships:

• Build trust
• Ensure good communication (communicate what you are doing to involve more stakeholders and to have the feeling that the effort has been useful; take your time to discuss issues, concernc, new ideas, etc.; get to know each other better...)
• Have a common goal / Agree on a Vision
• Have a good methodology (clear responsibilities, agreement on priorities and schedule, agreeing on the level of commitment / work carried out by each partner, having someone to lead)
• Ensure a formal process (good coordinators or a good contact person, does the community want what you offer?, does the community feel included in the partnership?, involve different stakeholders, manage expectations, have a well worked out programme, engagement, involving young people, ensure both short term results and long term milestones, have a process for raising issues or making decisions, support from management, involve the public and be outdoors with them, have the right representative - the person who can make decisions and take responsibility for the organisation at meetings)
• Allocate the necessary resources (money, sponsors, people)
• Ensure the right behaviour (compromise, equality, understanding other Points
• Ensure a formal process (good coordinators or a good contact person, does the community want what you offer?, does the community feel included in the partnership?, involve different stakeholders, manage expectations, have a well worked out programme, engagement, involving young people, ensure both short term results and long term milestones, have a process for raising issues or making decisions, support from management, involve the public and be outdoors with them, have the right representative - the person who can make decisions and take responsibility for the organisation at meetings)
• Allocate the necessary resources (money, sponsors, people)
• Ensure the right behaviour (compromise, equality, understanding other points of view, respect, be open for new ideas, give and take, patience to build trust, sharing failures, sharing successes, having a shared code of conduct)

2) Things to avoid when working in partnerships:

• Strategy (changes in objectives, no good goals, wrong definition of goals, no leader to lead the whole process, avoiding difficult questions/topics, differing aims/objectives, strategy and objectives missing)
• Accountability (no one knows who is responsible for what, waiting for others to do the work