Community Involvement
Years of experience have enabled the Sensory Trust to develop
an effective mixture of techniques to engage the widest possible
audience. Techniques that put people at ease, activities that are
fun, and locations that are accessible enable people who find conventional
consultation processes threatening or exclusive to share their
ideas and opinions about a site. We can collect information on
the issues to do with reducing or removing access barriers to public
open spaces. Combined with that we can produce assessments of quality
of experience, and types of use and activities, and a report on
ways in which these can be improved and developed.
Involving local communities in projects is essential
to ensure that projects are sustainable beyond the development
phase. Projects that have community input have more chance of success,
less problems with vandalism and maintenance and there are fewer ‘white
elephants’.
It is essential that community input should be seen as an on-going
part of the development work. Involvement should occur from the
very beginning and contact maintained throughout the life of the
project. Simply arranging for a community group to rubber-stamp
a finished design or plan is not community involvement.
As part of the Community Involvement package Sensory Trust can:
- Locate and contact appropriate groups and individuals in your
area
- Work out a sequence of engagement sessions that dovetail
with your development timetable
- Organise and run the engagement sessions
- Provide summary reports of feedback from the sessions at project
milestones
- Provide guidance on ways of continuing involvement beyond the
end of the project
Fee guidelines: previous projects have ranged
from £500 - £10k
Case study: National Arboretum, Westonbirt
Sensory Trust worked with the National Arboretum at Westonbirt
to help develop and improve its provision of information and interpretation,
concentrating on the area of the Old Arboretum.
We consulted with groups of older people with mobility impairments,
people with visual impairments, mothers with children under the
age of five with learning difficulties, and the Friends of Westonbirt
group. We looked at what information was important and/or interesting
to them, what format was of use to them, and how easy it was to
navigate around the arboretum. Various activities were used with
each group, for example the children were shown specific sensory
aspects and collected natural items from around the site to see
what increased their enjoyment of their visit (Walk ‘n’ Talk;
Nature Palettes and so on). They were then given the opportunity
to draw what the most special part of their visit was (Picture
Portraits). The Friends group carried out a Sensory Mapping activity
which highlighted areas of the site that attracted most visitors,
and the reasons why, and also identified areas lacking in sensory
richness that could be enhanced to appeal to more visitors and
help spread visitors around the site.
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