Community Entry Best Practices at Project Concern International: Experiences from Implementing Staff

Citation: Simpson, J., & Omaleki, V. (2019). Community Entry Best Practices at Project Concern International: Experiences from Implementing Staff [White Paper]. Retrieved June 6, 2019, from Project Concern International, https://www.pciglobal.org/resource-library/research-and-publications/].

Community engagement is a hallmark strategy of Project Concern International (PCI) and is critical for ensuring that programming is as community-driven as possible. Unfortunately, best practices regarding community engagement, and specifically, community entry, have not been comprehensively studied. In January 2016, PCI conducted 23 key informant interviews (KIIs) across 15 PCI projects in 10 countries to understand challenges and successes experienced during their projects’ entry process, and to identify best practices on community entry, an extremely important, but underrepresented component of community engagement in the literature. Using the Community Readiness Model as a theoretical lens, the key informant interview survey was designed to assess a range of topics, including planning and assessment, community readiness at entry, perceived changes during process, communication methods to and from community members and stakeholders, trust building activities and perceived results, inclusion of marginalized/vulnerable community members, deliberation and consensus on roles and responsibilities, and lessons learned. In addition to identifying the need for systematic community readiness assessment at entry, the findings from these key informant interviews are presented here and reflected in the recommendations for potential practices in future projects.