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Developing trauma-informed design inquiries for community engagement.
Overview
Neighborhood blight, deeply rooted in the racialized history of disinvestment, poses significant challenges for policymakers and community leaders who often attempt band-aid-level solutions for addressing systemic harms. This workshop addressed these challenges by equipping city officials and government consultants with a deep understanding of the systemic issues contributing to blight and design methodologies for building community trust, activating engagement, and empowering communities with sufficient resources while addressing policy issues in parallel.
Overview
Neighborhood blight, deeply rooted in the racialized history of disinvestment, poses significant challenges for policymakers and community leaders who often attempt band-aid-level solutions for addressing systemic harms. This workshop addressed these challenges by equipping city officials and government consultants with a deep understanding of the systemic issues contributing to blight and design methodologies for building community trust, activating engagement, and empowering communities with sufficient resources while addressing policy issues in parallel.
Deliverables
Informed Policy Design
Ethical Engagement Practices including toolkit on Trauma-Informed Community Engagement
Empowered Change Agents
Challenges
To create a foundation for policies that not only address the symptoms but also tackle the underlying causes, focusing on ethical community engagement and sustainable change, and relevant for participants, representing mayoral staff across seven U.S. cities.
Approach
To create a foundation for policies that not only address the symptoms but also tackle the underlying causes, focusing on ethical community engagement and sustainable change, and relevant for participants, representing mayoral staff across seven U.S. cities.
Results
The workshop successfully empowered city government employees and consultants to design policies rooted in a thorough understanding of racial disinvestment. As a result, participants could approach decision-making with greater empathy and insight, leading to more informed and impactful outcomes in addressing neighborhood blight. The strategies developed during the workshop are now being implemented, paving the way for more ethical and effective community engagement.
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