So, you’ve heard about burnout – but what exactly is it? How does it affect you? How can you avoid it? As an engagement practitioner, a leader and someone who has experienced burnout I have dedicated time to finding out more and starting an honest-but-critical discussion about burnout within the community engagement space.

It’s another year and it’s February already. There are always a lot of thoughts at this time of year about the months ahead, what’s important and where our practice is heading. Jumping on that band-wagon, I’ve jotted down my musings on engagement top trends for 2020.

As we welcome the beginning of a new year it is a welcome many will never forget. The catastrophic fires that have raged across Australia have left our community shattered, loosing life, family, friends homes, jobs, businesses and more. We have seen the best of the human spirit and sadly some of the worst. Lets also not forget the tragedy that has befallen our native wildlife and the terrible long term impact – their homes have been completely destroyed.

Due to the broad lack of understanding from government and corporates about what it means to ‘engage with communities’ – what ‘engage’ means and how it might or could be achieved – many private companies, government agencies, Local Government Authorities and State Government Departments quite rightly utilise the IAP2 spectrum to guide their engagement practice. Many Community Engagement Practitioners also use this spectrum as a way of being consistent with their engagement across multiple consultations, using a tried and tested (and well-researched) tool designed specifically for the sector, which justifies a clear and trusted methodology for their ‘engagement’.

In 2018, IAP2 Australasia invited members on a participatory budgeting journey – “Pitch for the Practice”. Here we present an update on the outcomes, achievements and learnings from the winning projects.

In your public engagement practice, do you find that the hardest people to bring onside are your own staff — the planners and engineers? Kylie Cochrane, head of public engagement with Aurecon, the international planning and design advisory group (and currently president of IAP2 International), has a lot of experience in talking to the experts. She’ll share some ideas on how to convince them that it’s “OK to let go”. 

We have a great things planned and need your help to get them done! Expressions of Interest from experienced Researchers or Allied Researchers to join the IAP2 Research Committee in 2020.

We are inviting Expressions of Interest to be an IAP2A Core Values Awards Judge, or Conference Abstract Reviewer in 2020.