Donna Joyette
When the rhythm of the music changes, the dance step must change also
African Proverb
As we try to relegate the COVID-19 pandemic to a distant memory, we pause to consider our way forward in so many ways, personally and professionally. Community engagement practitioners involved in building relationships with and among members of our communities and including their voices in meaningful ways are no exception.
In our book Community Engagement in a Changing Social Landscape, while Winston and I anticipated future changes, we could not have imagined the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic nor fully predicted its impact. As we look back at our commentary in Chapter 6, The Age of Computer Mediated Technologies, we remain convinced that while remote methods of engagement have their merits, not the least of which are convenience, cost-effectiveness, and the possibility of reaching a wider audience, there are limitations.
A lot was written during the pandemic that underscored limitations such as access, availability, and familiarity with technology. Longstanding inequities were punctuated especially when schools, libraries, and many cafés where people tended to be able to get free Wi-Fi, shuttered their doors. While a lot of attention has been focused on accessibility, what has seemed more poignant to me in recent conversations with a diverse age range of community members, from young children to seniors, is the challenge of building trust in online environments, especially when online scams and predators have become so prevalent. Although it’s evident that over time folks can build friendships and connections with those they have never met in person, the reluctance, for instance, to turn one’s camera on, or share one’s name or personal details seems to persist, particularly for the most vulnerable of participants. The pandemic has caused even the youngest among us to appreciate, and even crave, actual human contact and more organic and animated conversations.
A theme that has consistently emerged in my conversations with community members is the need for choice in how they connect. Now that free Wi-Fi is more accessible and so many of us were dragged reluctantly into the virtual environment, there is a growing demand for a hybrid approach both to service delivery and other engagement activities. As engagement practitioners, we need to take a moment to reflect on what we have learned and how our approaches to engagement may have or need to be altered. We have been on a fast track with little time to think about the changes made and possible implications. We have developed a taste for the convenient, but before we run headlong into making virtual engagement our method of choice, let’s take some time to critically consider what components of service delivery and indeed engagement may be best suited for the virtual neighbourhood, and which are more appropriate for in-person contact. If not, we run the risk of slipping back into the old ways of excluding those most in need of having their voices heard and amplified.
Community Engagement in a Changing Social Landscape 