Planning engagement

Effective and robust engagement starts with a clear plan. Engagement planning matters because it helps ensure:

• the right people are involved
• in the right way
• at the right time

This means decisions can be made that truly reflect their needs and experiences.

Below you will find practical tools and guidance to involve people in a meaningful way and make your planning clearer and more effective. 

Stages of engagement planning

Engagement planning helps ensure your approach is clear, inclusive, and grounded in trauma-informed, ethical, and safe practice. Key stages include: 

• Define the purpose and scope of engagement and clarify: 
  – why you’re engaging
  – what decisions are being influenced
  – who should be involved
• Assess risks and barriers to participation 
  Identify potential challenges and plan to address them. This might include things like trauma, accessibility, or exclusion. 
• Align engagement activities with your project goals  
  Have a purpose for engaging and make sure it contributes to your intended outcomes. 
• Identify who needs to be involved
  Map stakeholders, communities, and individuals whose voices are essential to the process. 
• Choose appropriate engagement methods  
  Select tools and approaches that suit the audience, context, and level of influence needed. 
• Ensure inclusivity and equity
  Design engagement that is: 
  – accessible
  – culturally appropriate
  – inclusive of those who are not often heard or involved.
• Set realistic timelines
  Allow enough time for meaningful participation, preparation, and follow-up. 
• Clarify roles and responsibilities
  Decide the right level of authority for the engagement and to progress any changes. Determine who is leading the engagement, who is supporting and who is participating.  This ensures coordination and accountability.  
• Build in evaluation from the start
  Plan how you’ll measure the quality, reach, and impact of engagement. This will support learning and improvement. 
• Secure resources and support
  Ensure you have the time, budget, skills, and organisational backing to deliver effective engagement. 

Engaging with care

When you engage with people, it’s important to do so with care and respect. Make sure your engagement is ethical, trauma-informed, and based on human rights. This means creating safe spaces, being mindful of people’s experiences, and treating everyone fairly. By taking these steps, you help to: 

• Respect and honour the value of lived and living experiences 
• Create trust and build relationships 
• Ensure everyone feels valued and heard  
• Reduce the risk of further harm, trauma or exploitation

Steps for safe and ethical engagement 

To embed safety and respect in your engagement practice, consider the following: 

• Understand trauma and its impact
  Plan processes that are trauma-informed sensitive and empowering.
• Use a human rights-based approach
  People have a right to the highest standard of physical and mental health. Using a human-rights approach to engagement helps protect and promote that right. The PANEL principles (Participation, Accountability, Non-discrimination, Empowerment, and Legality) offer a useful guide for planning ethical inclusive engagement.  
• Create psychologically safe spaces
  Ensure environments are welcoming, accessible, and free from judgment or pressure. 
• Be transparent about purpose and influence
  Explain why engagement is happening. Be clear about the decisions being made, and how people’s input will be used. 
• Offer choice and control  
  Offer choice around how and when people take part. Respect their boundaries.
• Provide support and follow-up
  Offer emotional or practical support where needed. Keep people informed about outcomes and next steps. 
• Reflect and learn  
  Evaluate your approach and seek feedback. This will help improve your practice. 

Tools and resources supporting engagement planning 

• VOiCE: Community Engagement Planning Tool is a free resource developed by the Scottish Community Development Centre. Provides a common approach to planning, monitoring and evaluation that helps design and deliver effective engagement. VOiCE also embeds the National Standards for Community Engagement. 
• Ethical Engagement Cards are a simple tool to plan engagement in a fair and open way. They can help you identify and address ethical issues early on, ensuring inclusive engagement. They are a useful way to make engagement activities inclusive and respectful for everyone involved.   

Getting started with engagement

Once you have planned your approach, it’s time to put engagement into action. Consider which engagement methods will work best for your audience and goals.  

• The Participation Toolkit provides a range of tools and methods to help you plan, deliver, and evaluate engagement activities. Includes well-established approaches and adaptable techniques for digital and face to face engagement. 
• The Designing person-centred services for housing, social care and health toolkit brings together practical advice, tools, and real-world examples to help design services that meet people’s needs. It show cases approaches for involving people at every stage of engagement, from planning and design to delivery and improvement. 

Other helpful tools and resources