Community Engagement comes in many shapes and sizes and incorportates a wide range of situations, techniques and outcomes. The divisions of general practice undertake community engagement for a number of reasons and in a range of contexts. Those contexts include the following:

As process owners

Where the network seeks to engage with the community of interest to help make a decision. The community of interest might include consumers and providers of health care services.

As partners

Where the network, with partners such as a local council to decide something together, such as where and how to place a new podiatry service.

As participants

Where GPs participate in their own local divisional consultations, such as when deciding how the network should allocate resources to support general practice.

Internal context

Where internal stakeholders, such as staff members, are engaged, for example to decide the direction of a policy, or the details of a service being developed.

Observers

Where you may not be involved actively, but are sufficiently interested to keep informed about processes of relevance.  Depending on how such processes unfold you may choose to elevate your level of participation.