A guide to effective community engagement and participation

What is the purpose of the Involving People Framework?

“Community engagement is a purposeful process which develops a working relationship between communities, community organisations and public and private bodies to help them to identify and act on community needs and ambitions. It involves respectful dialogue between everyone involved, aimed at improving understanding between them and taking joint action to achieve positive change.”

Effective community engagement and the active participation of people is essential to ensure that health and social care services are fit for purpose and lead to better outcomes for people.

Across the Scottish Borders Health and Social Care Partnership our mission is 'to help the people of the Scottish Borders live their life to the full, by delivering services that place their needs at the heart of everything we do.’

This mission cannot be achieved by working in isolation, and we are committed to improving the ways in which people, especially those with lived experience, their families, carers and groups experiencing inequality can have their voices heard in decision making that affects them. We want current and future users of the services we provide to know that their views on what is important to them are understood and that they have influence and choice over how their health and social care needs are met.

As the resources (human and financial) we have available to us become ever tighter, it is also vital that patients, families, carers and our communities feel encouraged and supported to take an active role in their own health as well as in shaping and delivering the care we provide.

The Involving People Framework is intended to be a tool that;

- service providers can use to help plan engagement activities
- service users can refer to in order to find out what they can expect from involvement activities that take place for services provided by the Scottish Borders Health and Social Care Partnership.

The framework is based around the seven National Standards for Community Engagement

  • Planning
  • Inclusion
  • Support
  • Working together
  • Methods
  • Communication
  • Impact

Reports: