Webinar: “Authentic Community Engagement: Made in Milwaukee”

The Institute for Child and Family Well-Being is proud to host the webinar “Authentic Community Engagement: Made in Milwaukee” with Leah Jepson and Blake Tierney, Project Director and Manager of the Milwaukee Coalition for Children’s Mental Health, and Reggie Moore, Director of the City of Milwaukee’s Office of Violence Prevention, on April 16^th from 11:00-12:00 CST.

Community engagement, or “the intentional process of co-creating solutions in partnership with people who know best, through their own experiences,”^[1] requires the creation of authentic, collaborative relationships between context and content experts. Authentic community engagement demands mutual respect based on the value that both parties’ input provides to the development of solutions.^[2]  Through the process of developing relationships, reducing barriers, and building trust, authentic engagement creates an environment that supports and sustains social change.  Challenges to meaningful collaboration between context and content experts can present themselves when collaboration is mandated, approached from a place of fear or even indifference, or results in “fraudulent inclusivity” or tokenism.^[3] [4]  Meaningful collaboration between context and content experts creates a reciprocal process of empowerment and education that informs co-creation of social change and, ultimately, produces sustainable changes that actually benefit the community served.^[5]

This webinar seeks to explore why community engagement is critical to social change, how it impacts social change, and the challenges and benefits associated with collaboration through robust conversation with an experienced, Milwaukee-based panel through their work with the Milwaukee Coalition for Children’s Mental Health and the Office for Violence Prevention’s Blueprint for Peace and 414Life.

Register here: https://chwi.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_7KnGseTJSRWeFoAT8EetPw

[1] Attygalle, L. (2017).  The context experts.  Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/kathe/Downloads/The%20Context%20Experts_LisaAttygalle.pdf

[2] Attygalle, L. (2017).  The context experts.  Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/kathe/Downloads/The%20Context%20Experts_LisaAttygalle.pdf

[3] Attygalle, L. (2017).  The context experts.  Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/kathe/Downloads/The%20Context%20Experts_LisaAttygalle.pdf

[4] Attygalle, L.  (2019).  Creating the culture for community engagement: how fear may be holding us back from authentic engagement.  Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/kathe/Downloads/Creating%20the%20Culture%20for%20Engagement_LisaAttygalle.pdf

[5] Attygalle, L. (2017).  The context experts.  Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/kathe/Downloads/The%20Context%20Experts_LisaAttygalle.pdf