A fair amount of my work involves working with people in community contexts, and supporting people from all sorts of organisations and groups to work with different communities in ways which are empowering for all involved.
Four years ago a group of us started to develop training and networking sessions for people who have roles which require them to work with communities. This was in response to findings of some research we carried out in which we discovered that a lot of officers and volunteers don’t feel confident about doing this sort of thing. It can generate feelings of worry and stress – even though when they take the plunge they often have really good experiences. We call our programme of support around this ‘engaging together’.
Questions about social media in relation to such work are arising more and more. It might be that people are wondering how social media could help with community consultation. Or how they could use social media to make connections and build relationships in communities. Maybe just even to find out what’s going on.
In response to that my colleague Donna and I are running a series of short sessions in order to help people a little, with a view to using what we learn to develop more in depth learning opportunities. Our Social Media Mini Bytes series will invite people to explore opportunities, challenges and practicalities of using social media to engage communities in empowering ways. The sessions are free to attend.
The details and registration pages can be found from these links:
- Using social media in community engagement activities: Wed 11 September 12.30-1.30pm
- Using social media in community engagement activities: Thur 12 September 5-6pm
- Using twitter in community engagement activities: Tues 1 Oct 12.30-1.30pm
- Using twitter in community engagement activities: Tues 1 Oct 5-6pm
- Using blogs in community engagement activities: Mon 2 Dec 12.30-1.30pm
- Using blogs in community engagement activities: Mon 2 Dec 5-6pm
