Conversation starters - How clued-up are we about the best ways to initiate dialogues with emerging communities?

Mention rugby to a Welshman these past few days, and you’ll have no difficulty kick-starting an animated dialogue! Everyone has an opinion and will take every opportunity to express it.

Something similar exists in the Indian sub-continent with cricket or in Brazil with football. On a more cultural level, think how the Italians relate to opera or the Irish to poetry; and we all know how the French like their food. Such stereotypes can often be misleading, and what applies in general may not be valid in specific situations. But an insight into the particular predilections of people of different backgrounds is an invaluable aid to greater understanding and can help initiate the necessary dialogues we need if we are to strengthen community cohesion.

Last year’s Report by the Commission on Integration & Cohesion, Our Shared Future is probably one of the best pieces of work in this field and highlights both the challenges and much existing good practice. Without question, there is a need for public bodies to open up channels of communications with many groups who form part of our complex multi-cultural society. This was already a difficult task before the vast increase in EU migrants over recent years - today it is urgent. There are three reasons for this. Firstly, local authorities and other public providers (including the NHS and Police) have to commission and/or deliver services to a more diverse population and cannot fulfil their statutory and managerial obligations without establishing a constructive dialogue with their newer customers. Secondly, we stand at that point where the full weight of Government rhetoric urges public bodies to take public engagement more seriously; CLG’s Empowerment Agenda is a powerful cocktail of initiatives – all designed to increase public engagement and take more account of what people say to those in charge. The big danger is that more public consultation just means even louder voices for the traditional “usual suspects” - hence the need to go the extra mile and ensure that we engage with new and emerging communities.

But thirdly, notice how the whole issue of migration has shot up the agenda, and become a feature of an even wider and deep debate about British citizenship, what it means, and how it should be obtained. Some of those most affected by this issue are the migrant communities themselves and those who work with them, but maybe there is a more “local” version of citizenship that impacts them even more directly – and that is how these people are viewed, and how and to what extent are they welcomed and integrated into our towns, cities and countryside.

So is the challenge of setting up meaningful dialogues with new migrant groups any different, in principle, from an equally pressing need to talk to other seldom-heard or hard-to-reach groups? There is a long list of them, and they’re all deserving of more attention. And there is always pressure on limited resources.

The difference is that with many of the existing seldom-heard groups, we can build on reasonable foundations. There probably exists a Disability Forum or equivalent; maybe machinery to consult BME groups; liaison officers with gypsies and travellers; specialist youth workers who work with disadvantaged young people. All of these provide the means to get the dialogue going – a conversational point of departure. It depends heavily upon that elusive idea of empathy. But who of us knows how to find those issues which excite our friends from Poland. Or Lithuanians? Or Bulgarians?

We have much to explore and need to apply ourselves.

Shame they don’t play rugby everywhere ......! Trigger points

• Our Shared Future should be mandatory reading for anyone interested in public engagement.
• Look at the consultation on citizenship from the Border & Immigration Service. information
• Consider attending one of the Institute’s forthcoming Practitioner Workshops on Effective consultation with Migrant communities.

This is the 106th Tuesday Topic; a full list of subjects covered is available for Institute members and is a valuable resource covering so many aspects of consultation and engagement