1 Ill start with the overall intent of the program providing - PDF document

1

I’ll start with the overall intent of the program – providing multiple avenues of engagement to the broad diversity of communities within the county. We’ll achieve the goal by providing departments, divisions, and programs with additional engagement tools, conferring best practices in public involvement, increasing skills, and supporting a broad based volunteer process. 2

It’s been a year, but I’m confident you all recall the process of bringing the Community Engagement program to fruition. I’ve abbreviated the recommendations from the transition team 3

Here’s what we are working on: We continue to support the CPO program in its basic form • We’re establishing a leadership program to build engagement capacity within our many • diverse communities of color We continue to enhance coordination with our partner cities and service providers • We’re looking at a spectrum of digital tools to add to our engagement quiver • The staffing model – well we determined the best approach – that would be us…. • The two remaining recommendations are not off the table, however the community engagement work plan is currently at 135% of our FTE. These two will remain valid as we work through the current recommendations. 4

Before we talk about the CE program, let’s start with a quick snapshot of where the CPO program. Here are the current statistics on number of meetings and median attendance from July 1, 2017 to May 31, 2018 5

6

7

Although there are some additional meetings – this 11 month snapshot indicates growth in attendance. Prior year numbers included all staff, presenters, safety personnel (TVF&R/Sheriff). New data collection provides a better view of attendance. Although there are a high number of “unique” attendees, we have contact info for most and they should be a first attempt to convert to repeat attendance. 8

Substantial work has been done to glean the contact lists from the transition – Mary has individually looked at about 8,000 contacts to date and continues to revise the list. Total distribution is higher than the aggregate of mail/email as almost 1,600 (emails) are sent upon request of multiple CPO e-notices. *Postal down 104 **Email up 133 *** Multiple CPO Notices via email 9

Let’s talk about the overall responsibilities of the community engagement program within the county. Some of you may remember this graphic from the transition planning effort illustrating the breadth of public involvement activities undertaken county wide. The CPO program falls within the area outlined in red 10

The CCI Staff Support document includes everything from meeting agendas to developing training programs. CE staff in support of the CPO/CCI program provide assistance to more than 120 meetings per year. Program Coordinators attend about half of those. Additional actions like boundary adjustment support also are in response to CPO requests. A couple of items warrant further discussion such as supporting social media and streaming meetings which can be accomplished by volunteers but that discussion should probably be taken up at a future meeting or we may have some time at the end of this one. 11

The other side of community engagement includes daily management and coordination efforts such as [ list ] Big efforts such as the Civic Leaders training appear to be successful with 20 applicants completing the training and looking for engagement opportunities. LEAP also is a significant effort to establish guidelines, training, and resources for all county staff to ultimately support community members regardless of language barriers. We’ve initiated periodic coordination and collaboration with community engagement staff in Clackamas and Multnomah Counties, routinely meet with PI staff at our partner organizations and cities and often lend (and ask for their) support for community engagement efforts. One such effort is the recent IGA with CWS for an online survey tool – Westside Voices. 12

We are launching the County Nextdoor account – within the next week And continue to monitor and eventually choose a robust online engagement tool that meets multiple department needs, and budget for the needed cost and additional staff. Westside Voices is now available for department uses, and as of yesterday (6/18/18) a new CPO calendar was launched using Trumba for better community access to meetings and events. 13

So how does all the efforts get accomplished? There are currently two cost centers within Community Engagement and they’re apportioned to support the CPO program and the other tasks. Although the hours are available there are still a multitude of scheduled and impromptu meetings to prepare for, attend and actions to follow up. The hours are based on the theoretical percent divisions of tasks. 14

Staff will continue to support the identified tasks CCI has identified Other key priorities are; the training – which has been discussed for several years as a CCI intention Enacting clear policy regarding what volunteer contact information can be protected and what is available public information Implement map changes and CPO boundary descriptions on any CCI approved changes The Marketing Subcommittee has done a yeoman’s job of bringing about a marketing plan that sets clear expectations with a succinct process to be brought before your CCI for approval and implementation – the CE program budget has retained the Marketing fund for another year. And staff is ready to enter into discussions about logo design and adoption that meets production standards as well as becomes an easy identified brand for the CPO program. Staff also would like to institute an annual performance evaluation survey with CPO leaders to help judge support. 15

A much more user friendly calendar has been implemented (this week!) providing CPO meetings at a glance with direct links to CPO webpage. This is one of things that needs to have increased awareness. And YAY! Finally, after two years, the Handbook is about to launch online. It is a living document and this provides access by all, with revisions available immediately. 16

In addition to CPO/CCI support there are several initiatives underway to better support county-wide public involvement efforts. LEAP will be a living document, but this first implementation sets clear guidelines and provides all departments the same foundation. Civic Leaders effort was very successful based on the initial criteria and we have made arrangements for the next training in Spring 2019. The intent is a sustainable program with two trainings a year that broadens the availability to more community members. Staff are taking on enhanced communications roles specifically with other departments to provide resources. We continue to expand our coordination/collaboration with our partners including the cities, service providers, non-profits, Metro and the other regional county staff. As members of the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) CE staff will continue to offer access to best practice for any County staff undertaking public involvement Ultimately the County will implement an online engagement tool that can be applied by departments for different outreach and engagement initiatives. These are expensive and require an additional staff person. 17

18