Community Engagement
What is community engagement?
Community engagement means different things to different people. However, at the National FGM Centre, we use it to refer to the process and practice in which individuals of a particular community participate in an intervention programme to achieve a common goal. By this definition, our community engagement approach serves as a tool for facilitating the process of an intervention programme and for achieving specific objectives in preventing FGM and other harmful practices.
At the National FGM Centre, we recognise that communities possess a wealth of knowledge and resources that can be harnessed to address issues that affect them such as FGM, breast flattening, and Spirit Possession, Witchcraft, and Ritualistic Abuse. Therefore, our community engagement methods emphasise a bottom-up, community-led approach to tackling FGM and other harmful practices.
What do we do differently?
We aim to use the REPLACE Cyclic Framework for Social Norm Transformation, developed by the University of Coventry in partnership with other EU organisations. The framework consists of five elements that represent the flow of motivation and behaviour change within a community. It emphasises the important role played by community leaders, influential people, and peer group champions in achieving social norm transformation.
Engaging the Community
Together with grassroots organisations, we organise and facilitate women’s health events, inter-faith forums, and men’s focus groups. This is our first step for working with community members and involving them as community champions to tackle the issues that affect them.
Understanding the social norm perpetuating the harmful practice
Using Community champions, we aim to understand the specific belief systems and enforcement mechanisms that support the continuation of FGM in affected communities using PEER research. PEER research facilitates effective engagement with community members and provides an in-depth exploration of various issues related to FGM and other harmful practices. The process also empowers and motivates community members to reflect on and challenge the social norm.
Community readiness to end the harmful practice
Each affected community in the UK is different and will be at different stages of readiness to challenge and overturn the social norm supporting the continuation of FGM. The REPLACE Approach incorporates a Community Readiness Model based on Stages of Change Models.
Intervention development
The REPLACE Approach to intervention design and implementation is unique because it combines theoretical concepts concerning readiness to change, behaviour change, and targeting problem behaviour from both individual and community-based theories of behaviour change intervention development. It does this in collaboration with the community where change is desired.
Evaluation
i. Using the REPLACE Community Readiness to Change Model to assess a community’s stage of readiness to end FGM or other harmful practices at the outset of working with them. This assessment is then repeated after the intervention and can be revisited at later dates to identify shifts at the community level.
ii. Conducting focus groups with community members to gather in-depth information about their thinking and beliefs. These focus groups are carried out both before and after interventions, where possible, to get a richer understanding of the changes within communities.
iii. Conducting questionnaires before and after interventions with participants. These questionnaires include numerical rating scales to assess specific beliefs, and open-ended qualitative questions to gather valuable information about any individual behaviour changes.
iv. Keeping records of intervention activities, such as the number of community events that are held and the number of people who attended. Over time, increasing engagement and participation in activities aimed at ending FGM and other harmful practices can indicate community development and change.
Why Commission Us?
At the National FGM Centre, we pride ourselves on the quality and care of the services we provide to families, young people, and professionals. If you would be interested in finding out more about the services we offer, head to our ‘Commission Us’ section.
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