This is one of the several short papers – ‘Empowerment Tools’ – recently refreshed all of which are listed and linked below. Recently I used these with clients in East London.
Empowering people, groups and communities works at many levels and it is important to be dialogue competent – engaging people appropriately in co-developing human services or whatever activity it is that you deliver or want to see happen. The process of empowerment operates in different ways informing and engaging; consulting; involving; and collaborating (developed in the paper below). Each process involves different ways of sharing influence, power and control and each step has a value in and of itself as well as implied promises of commitments from whoever is doing the consulting and dialogue. All of this is explained in this short paper:
Empowerment Tools – Practicing public participation, methods and stages
Links to other mini-papers and learning resources in the Empowerment Tools series:
Social Capital and Public Sector Professional Work
Healthy Partnerships quick checklist
Also these materials are reflected upon in a paper that develops a new and more effective approach to managing public resources and services: