In 2012, the City of Edmonton, the Centre for Public Involvement (C PI), and Alberta Climate Dialogue (A BC D) collaborated to create a citizen dialogue and deliberation process focused on energy vulnerability and climate change. 56 citizens came together every Saturday for 6 weeks to provide advice and guidance to the City. This article is part of a seven-part series exploring some of the lessons learned about deliberative dialogue through the Edmonton Citizens’ Panel. The Energy Transition Strategy that incorporated the Panel’s recommendations was passed unanimously by Edmonton City Council in April 2015.

You can find the full working paper, written by Mary Pat MacKinnon, Jacquie Dale and Deborah Schrader, here: Looking Under the Hood of Citizen Engagement: The Citizens’ Panel on Edmonton’s Energy and Climate Challenges.

The Edmonton’s Citizens’ Panel on Energy and Climate Challenges was a team effort among three partners: Alberta Climate Dialogue (ABCD), the Centre for Public Involvement (CPI), and the City of Edmonton.

Both ABCD and CPI consist of researchers and practitioners. The researchers are largely embedded in an academic culture – studying and writing about deliberative dialogue, while the practitioners do dialogue work and are often paid (either as a consultant or as a staff) for this task. Researchers and practitioners have differences in culture, expectations, requirements and motivations. For example, researchers are required to undergo formal academic ethics reviews with specific standards and protocols (including consent forms, data collection tools and process evaluation questions, all of which require approval). Practitioners, on the other hand, typically develop evaluation forms that require clients’ approval but not usually legal or research ethics approvals.

Collaboration between these two sets of interests, expertise and organizational cultures and practices was not a given.

Challenges of Researcher–Practitioner Collaboration

For many of the involved researchers, the Edmonton Panel was both their first substantive public deliberative dialogue and their first opportunity to work with practitioners in implementation. Some challenges were concrete. For example, researchers were stretched when, at the close of sessions, the practitioners asked process-evaluation questions that had not been included in the formal surveys. The practitioners felt that these questions were important to quality design, giving panelists an opportunity to respond to the day’s activities, facilitation and agenda. Researchers did not see the merit of the questions and pushed back against conducting the “additional evaluations.”

Practitioners were challenged by moments when details got lost in communication. For example, at several sessions, practitioners were informed just before the panel got underway of the need to administer a particular research tool during that session. This forced practitioners to rework the session design and schedule in order to respect the commitment to finishing on time.

Other challenges were harder to identify. For example, there were differences in terminology and different understandings of what deliberative dialogue was e.g. theory vs practice. And these were highly nuanced differences that sometimes didn’t even become evident until deeper relationships were built.

Benefits Of Researcher–Practitioner Collaboration

Overall though the benefits outweighed the challenges, given the richness that the collaboration brought to the project. 
Speaking from the perspective of a practitioner, I was pleased to work with researchers who contributed important human and intellectual resources. For example, theoretical, reflective thinking around deliberation and what was being learned about climate change psychology challenged and propelled us, as designers, to refine some processes.

As practitioners, we have limited time to conduct research into these types of issues and questions, and we found it helpful to have access to the researchers’ resources.

The research component also proved to have a positive impact on both the City and the citizens on the panel. This reinforced the seriousness of the undertaking, increasing its value and the willingness of citizens to contribute their time, energy and commitment.

We also think practitioners have something valuable to share with researchers. With decades of practical experience, we have expert knowledge of group dynamics and are able to gauge what methods to use to respond to emergent needs.

An example of strengthened process design was our collective reflection on the value of including more ‘holistic’ methods and the resultant decision to use a technique called “soft-shoe shuffle,” in which participants move to a designated space in the room that aligns with their perspective or values. This technique takes the tension away from the expression of divergent opinions.

Although the differing perspectives of researchers and practitioners stretched everyone and required multiple panel design iterations, the combination of the practical with the theoretical resulted in stronger designs. Research on deliberative dialogue has great potential to strengthen the work of practitioners and improve the field overall but it does take collaboration to identify critical issues and to translate the research into useable practical knowledge.

In 2012, the City of Edmonton, the Centre for Public Involvement (C PI), and Alberta Climate Dialogue (A BC D) collaborated to create a citizen dialogue and deliberation process focused on energy vulnerability and climate change. 56 citizens came together every Saturday for 6 weeks to provide advice and guidance to the City. This article is part of a seven-part series exploring some of the lessons learned about deliberative dialogue through the Edmonton Citizens’ Panel. The Energy Transition Strategy that incorporated the Panel’s recommendations was passed unanimously by Edmonton City Council in April 2015.

You can find the full working paper, written by Mary Pat MacKinnon, Jacquie Dale and Deborah Schrader, here: Looking Under the Hood of Citizen Engagement: The Citizens’ Panel on Edmonton’s Energy and Climate Challenges.

There can be an inherent conflict between making public the process and outcomes of consultative deliberations, and respecting the public positions of government stakeholders.

Our experience co-hosting the Citizens’ Panel on Edmonton’s Energy and Climate Challenges revealed the differing opinions for and against media involvement, such as social-media posting and information sharing during deliberative dialogue panels. By presenting this case study we will explore some of the tensions that challenge deliberative dialogue practitioners.

There were three parties co-hosting the Citizen Panel. Alberta Climate Dialogue (ABCD), a community-university research alliance funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The Centre for Public Involvement (CPI) is a partnership between the City of Edmonton and the University of Alberta providing leadership for citizen participation and deliberation. The third partner, who was also the client, was the City of Edmonton’s Office of Environment.

While all parties respected each other’s perspectives, there remained differences of opinion about communicating the work of the Citizens’ Panel to the broader Edmonton community before and during the Panel sessions. This included whether citizens should be posting and sharing opinions outside the panel or whether it should be restricted for the duration of the deliberative dialogue.

The Case For Media Involvement

ABCD and CPI were both keen to promote the Panel widely in order to attract the interest of other citizens and to increase the legitimacy of the Panel’s work (Dryzik and Goodin 2006).

ABCD and CPI felt that panelists would want to speak to their families, friends and colleagues about their work and, as such, should not be isolated from outside influences. They also felt that, on balance, media coverage would generate more community-level interest, which could be mobilized in the post-Panel period when the recommendations were before the City Council.

The Case Against Media Involvement

The City held a different perspective than ABCD and CPI, being more cautious about promoting the panel through the media. Their primary fear was that media coverage and potential subsequent mobilization by community groups and others could interfere, influence, or bias the work of the Panel. The City was also concerned about the potential fallout of either an ineffective or a rogue Panel—one that moved outside the established scope to weigh in on issues that were considered to be “off the table”.

The Outcome For The Edmonton Conference

It was agreed that there would be no media presence at the sessions, nor media outreach, until the Panel Report was completed.

There was very little promotion or communication except for recognition of the Panel on the City website. As well, ABCD and CPI both maintained their own websites. The Panel was prominent on each, but this did little to expand knowledge beyond those already interested. There was limited use of Twitter and Facebook by participants, as well as by ABCD and CPI.

Implications Of Media Absence

A first implication is that the broader Edmonton public was largely shut out of this process as it unfolded. This represented a missed opportunity to undertake community education and engagement around big decisions on citywide energy and carbon reduction.

A second implication revolves around the issue of power imbalances in policy discourse. Given the array of organized interests with access to more information and power than non-organized citizens, the decision to not involve media tends to perpetuate the information and power imbalance between citizens and organized interests.

Exploring Media Involvement Going Forward

While we understand that government stakeholders are worried about media participation creating a bias (and/or creating a public outcry), we believe that more good than bad can come from shining a public light on deliberative dialogue proceedings. Through our many years of experience facilitating citizen deliberations, we have found that many citizens yearn for an opportunity to think critically about important issues and to do it in a way that allows for informed and deeper thought in dialogue with others. The use of media, whether that be through non-line dialogue platforms, social media, etc. can help bring deliberation to more people.

Our hope is that future deliberative dialogue experiences will continue to grapple with these tensions. Through shared experiences, facilitators and government stakeholders can come to understand each other’s perspectives and strike the right balance for media involvement in citizen dialogues.

In 2012, the City of Edmonton, the Centre for Public Involvement (C PI), and Alberta Climate Dialogue (A BC D) collaborated to create a citizen dialogue and deliberation process focused on energy vulnerability and climate change. 56 citizens came together every Saturday for 6 weeks to provide advice and guidance to the City. This article is part of a seven-part series exploring some of the lessons learned about deliberative dialogue through the Edmonton Citizens’ Panel. The Energy Transition Strategy that incorporated the Panel’s recommendations was passed unanimously by Edmonton City Council in April 2015.

In 2012, the City of Edmonton, the Centre for Public Involvement (C PI), and Alberta Climate Dialogue (A BC D) collaborated to create a citizen dialogue and deliberation process focused on energy vulnerability and climate change. 56 citizens came together every Saturday for 6 weeks to provide advice and guidance to the City. This article is part of a seven-part series exploring some of the lessons learned about deliberative dialogue through the Edmonton Citizens’ Panel. The Energy Transition Strategy that incorporated the Panel’s recommendations was passed unanimously by Edmonton City Council in April 2015.

In 2012, the City of Edmonton, the Centre for Public Involvement (CPI), and Alberta Climate Dialogue (ABCD) collaborated to create a citizen dialogue and deliberation process focused on energy vulnerability and climate change. The Energy Transition Strategy that incorporated its recommendations was passed unanimously by Edmonton City Council in April 2015. For a video reflecting on the influence of the Panel on City Council discussions, see this link.

In business, the more you engage with your customer, the more you know their needs, and the better you can serve them. Engaging the customer is ultimately a win-win proposition for both parties. This is as true for government agencies and non-profits as it is for any business: everyone can stand to gain from open lines of communication. Below are three ways government agencies can improve their public engagement.

Little changes go a long way. An interesting example of innovation in Public Engagement is currently taking place in England as a result of changes to their National Health Services (NHS).

Response To Major Structural Changes In The Health Care System in England

In 2012, the government changed the operating structure of the NHS so that it no longer reports to the Health Ministry of the government, but instead to the NHS Commissioning Board, a group of 24 appointees who render all decisions on its behalf.

The theory and practice of Public Engagement is always evolving, thanks in part to ongoing research initiatives from industry leaders around the globe. Staying on top of and incorporating the latest findings is an essential part of effective Public Engagement practice. One example is new thinking that brings a systems understanding to public engagement.

The health care system can be intimidating for patients and their families to navigate: many patients, their families, and advocates feel that their wants and needs are little understood. Yet health care providers feel the strain of the system too, as providing the best possible care often involves coordinating treatments across multiple departments and managing pressure-filled situations.

Many of these issues can be solved by engaging in dialogue. Patient Engagement (PE) provides a helpful model for bringing together health care providers and patients and their families to identify common issues and generate potential solutions.

Every step of Experience-Based Co-Design (EBCD) is essential to the overall process, but perhaps the most powerful component is that of storytelling. It is important to emphasize the value that storytelling brings to EBCD in truly capturing the lived-experience of patients and their families, and how critical it is that patients are engaged in the best way possible in order to share their unique experiences.