Implementing equitable engagement in government: strategies and solutions
On March 16, 98 public servants from across the country learned about conducting effective and equitable community engagement in government.
The 90-minute session was led by Dr. Sofía Bosch Gómez. Bosch Gómez is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Northeastern’s College of Arts, Media, and Design, the Burnes Center for Social Change, and The GovLab. She is a designer and researcher interested in the intersection between public service innovation and design research and education. Before pursuing her PhD, Sofía worked for the Mexico City government and the Mexican federal government doing design research, user experience testing, service design, and visual communication. She has also collaborated with international and philanthropic institutions like the International Labour Organization and Bloomberg.
Sofía Bosch Gómez
In the virtual training, participants learned about tools and processes that allow us to better tap the collective wisdom of our communities in defining our problems and devising innovative solutions. Participants also discussed engagement tools and key strategies to collaborate effectively with team members.
Bosch Gómez began the session by asking participants to define what equitable engagement means to them. This resulted in a range of answers.
“Where a diverse population is represented,” one public servant wrote.
“Ensuring people of all backgrounds have full access to participation and that their voices are all considered in a meaningful way,” wrote another public servant.
Bosch Gómez explained that equitable engagement consists of two important elements: fair collaboration and fair participation. She went on to say that one’s approach to a problem may be different depending on their personal experience, disciplinary background, or political views. It is essential, according to Bosch Gómez, to look beyond these biases if we want to create productive change.
“Sometimes expertise or personal assumptions may blind us from understanding the problem or situation from another perspective. In order to have a more complete idea or view of what the problem is to garner solutions or understand the impact of a public service the ideal is to get the point of view or the opinion of the communities and experiences of the communities and people experiencing the issue first-hand, along with other relevant stakeholders,” she said.
Bosch Gómez introduced several examples of how equitable engagement is utilized in government programs and projects, including stories from her own work and experiences.
Mexico City - Mi Taxi
While working for the Mexico City government, Bosch Gómez worked on the Mi Taxi project, which served to address the high levels of violence against women and other populations in taxis across the city. Her team’s goal was to research the problem by talking to those most impacted by the issue, and in doing so, provide an effective solution to ensure the security of taxi passengers.
First, her team spoke to public servants and experts from other ministries and agencies to define which populations were most impacted by unsafe taxi rides. From there, they defined their key stakeholders and created a set of app prototypes to test with these groups. They made sure to test their product in both major parts of the city and those parts of the city that were more remote to ensure it was accessible to everyone. Bosch Gómez stressed the importance of repeat testing and collaboration to ensure success in your project.
“We collaborated with taxi drivers who would just drive us around back and forth and we would press the [emergency] button and note the time it took for people to stop the car and see what was happening … These tests allowed us to go back to the developers and iterate the experiences doing these tests with the taxi drivers. It also helped us to create this app as a mirror. Not only for citizens but also for drivers who expressed the need to connect to the authorities,” she said.
Future of Work Task Force
Bosch Gómez also outlined an example of equitable engagement utilized by The Future of Work Task Force in New Jersey. The task force wanted to gauge the impact of technological developments in the labor and employment landscape. Using All Our Ideas, an online submission forum, the group received submissions from New Jersey residents about their ideas and were able to rank which ideas they prefer the most. This example encapsulates the importance of using lived experience as expertise when working to solve a problem.
Before opening the session up to Q&A, Bosch Gómez introduced the Collective Intelligence Checklist for the Public Sector. Created by The GovLab and Nesta, this guide is intended for public servants to use when considering utilizing collective intelligence in their projects. The checklist asks the user nine questions as part of the process.
- Have you articulated the project’s goals?
- Have you identified the right participants?
- Can you reach the participants you identified?
- Who is the right owner?
- Have you included incentives for participation?
- Have you defined the tasks?
- Have you established the workflow?
- How will you evaluate inputs?
- How will you use gained insights?
If the user can answer the questions on this checklist, they are more likely to succeed using collective intelligence.
Q&A Session
Following her presentation, Bosch Gómez opened up the floor to questions from public servants about their experiences with equitable engagement. One public servant asked how to facilitate a workshop and utilize everyone’s time effectively once you get everyone together. Bosch Gómez offered a simple strategy for starting a workshop: venting. According to Bosch Gómez, people often do not have the opportunity to voice their concerns to government, so when they are given the chance the response is often emotional. It is important to hear out these individuals and get their true, unfiltered thoughts before moving into the substance of the session.
“We would always target 10 to 15 minutes of venting at the beginning of any workshop. This was so people could get whatever they had in their minds out. Once we have all vented and connected, there are resources in order to create workshops and facilitate them,” she said.
Another participant asked how to convince team members that engagement and public involvement is important to give disadvantaged communities a voice. Bosch Gómez used her experience on the Mi Taxi project to explain that in order to get communities on board with community engagement, one must appeal to their audience.
“I think it’s a question of being strategic and knowing your audience,” she said. “The way that I pitched that part of the project to the director of the [innovation] agency, was by saying that taxi drivers in Mexico City have big political power. If there is something they don’t like, they will shut the city down. You need to hear them and make them part of a process. You do not want to shut down a city of 22 million people.”
In feedback from participants, 93% of respondents said they would recommend this training to a friend or colleague. 92% shared that they are likely to use what they learned in their work. Here is what some of our participants had to say:
“Particularly if you don’t have any background in participation and engagement, it is a great, inclusive introduction.” -New Jersey participant, Advanced Career (20+ years)
“Pertinent to the work we are doing in our program.” -State participant, Advanced Career (20+ years)
A recording of this workshop is available here. To sign up for another one of our Spring 2023 workshops, click here.
Want to join our list of state partners? Host a workshop of your own? Drop us a line at [email protected].
