The four months working with Community Engagement Team at Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) as a Practicum Student is an inspiring and rewarding experience. With an open mind to learn more about community engagement practices and skills and to hone my communication and interpersonal skills, which are essential to planners’ work, I decided to accept this offer that does not seems quite relevant to the planning field.
The various activities and opportunities I had with VCH’s Community Engagement Team has provided me a holistic insight in how community engagement work in public sector. At the very beginning I had the chance of getting involved in a virtual Open Board Forum as a translator to provide real-time translation to Chinese-speaking residents in a specific neighborhood. Before the Open Board Forum was on live, I also helped translate the posters and promotion materials on our engagement website. The language services provided in this important communication channel for COVID-19 information is the result of a careful consideration of the anticipated audience from the neighborhood this forum is for. This is not the only activities that involved community of diverse background. In the preparation for vaccine clinics at Chinatown, I also helped with the translation of communication materials.
I had several activities and opportunities to hone my verbal and written communication skills and to practice various communication engagement methods. One task was to call back to answer COVID-19 related questions from participants of a Telephone Town Hall. I managed to communicate tactically with an upset community member and learned how to follow-up professionally in such situation from observing my supervisor to handle the case. I also had the opportunity to work with my team to prepare weekly email newsletter that is sent out to the VCH’s Community Engagement Advisory Network (CEAN) and joined the monthly CEAN Meeting before they had a summer break. I believe in my future work as a planner community engagement will be an essential part especially in the initial phase of gathering information. My experience engaging CEAN members will allow me to better facilitate future planning workshop with community members and to communicate efficiently with local stakeholders.
Besides the community engagement work, I managed the VCH community partners database, maintained the VCH Community Engagement website to support VCH’s engagement project, and assisted the preparation of CEAN memo to help determine its future program. To prepare the CEAN memo, I compared the VCH demographics to that of our community engagement network to see if certain groups of the community are underrepresented. This was to ensure that our public engagement is effective and meaningful. I learned that meaningful public engagement is characterized by its inclusivity, accessibility and a balanced representation from any group impacted by VCH’s decision or change. This is applicable to a community planning scenario.
This internship allowed me to acquire professional experience in public sector. During my internship, I attended weekly department-wide meeting and Community Engagement team meeting as a note-taker, attendee, and presenter. I am also involved in communication and collaboration with some other teams in the department. As a student with interest in working at the public sector in the future, I found this experience has enhanced my understanding of the knowledge and skills required in such work environment.
This internship was incredibly valuable as a learning experience, both from an academic and personal perspective. I developed significant relationships with established people working in communication and public engagement roles in the public sector. From a professional perspective, I learned a significant amount about the multiple steps to engage public advisors, and practiced various common community engagement methods. I observed the commonality and difference between the community engagement activities at VCH and a few City of Vancouver’s public planning workshops that I either facilitated or participated as a public member before. The important insight I gained from VCH will inform my future work as a planner to plan strategically for meaningful public engagement activities.
Learning Significance