What is the course overview?
The first part of this course discusses the pros and cons of about 15-25 of the nearly 70 Citizen Participation (CP) Techniques. Among the CP techniques covered are some of the most widely used ones, such as different types of meetings, some advisory committees, how to work with the media as well as the more recently added CP tools, the social media techniques. Course participants help pick some of the CP techniques that they would like to discuss.

For the other half of this workshop, participants learn how to identify the high priority CP needs for an actual, difficult and controversial project that course participants have brought to the session. Course participants learn by means of a systematic, step-by-step process, to prioritize the identified CP needs and design a tailor-made CP program that addresses the specific, identified, needs. They will come up with a CP program that is as safe as it is feasible and works within the limits of the agency’s financial and time constraints.

Who should take this course?
This course is recommended for project managers and their team members, public involvement, citizen participation and communication professionals as well as some of the upper level managers. This course picks up where Systematic Development of Informed Consent (SDIC) leaves off; therefore, SDIC is a prerequisite.

What are the course learning objectives?
Participants who complete this course will gain skills on how to:

• Assess a project’s "Citizen Participation Needs";
• Prioritize those CP needs; and
• Design a CP program that's tailored to their project's particular high-priority CP need which in turn will lead to obtaining the “Informed Consent” from the potentially affected interests including those opposed to the project.

What are the logistics?
This three-day course is a hands-on management workshop where participants roll up their sleeves and apply what they learned in SDIC to an actual, important, and preferably controversial project. Recommended course size is 15-45 participants.

Hans, Annemarie & Jennifer Bleiker, a husband-and-wife, and daughter team teach this course. The Bleiker’s have dedicated their professional lives to making organizations with important missions -- especially public agencies -- better at accomplishing their missions. They are devoted to helping make public-sector agencies more effective. Their Consent-Building methodology is both cutting-edge and entirely unique to their research.

Is there available background material?
There is no recommended background material.