Providing feedback and evaluating engagement
Feedback is a critical element of successful engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Feedback enables community members to assess whether their views have been understood and accurately recorded.
By providing timely feedback agencies can enhance partnerships with communities and influence the level of motivation needed to achieve agreed outcomes. Feedback demonstrates the agency’s commitment to deliver agreed outcomes and develop positive relationships.
Feedback can be enhanced by an ongoing review and evaluation process. Agencies should consider engagement activities from a community perspective and assess whether other methods could be used to enhance community engagement.
Ongoing feedback and evaluation will:
- encourage ongoing participation
- improve relationships
- identify new issues
- clarify whether predefined government and community goals and objectives are being met.
Methods of providing feedback may include publishing reports in newsletters or local papers; presenting outcomes through urban, regional and remote area Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander radio and television outlets; mailing the report to engagement participants, or contacting participants by telephone or in person.
The layout, language and presentation of written material regarding the engagement activity should be carefully considered. Summaries in poster form or newsletters that include diagrams or photos from the engagement process can be useful in conveying feedback and outcomes in a non-verbal way.
