HOW TO DO IT

A. Who | B. What | C. Meetings | D. Engagement

D. How can you make sure that your engagement with LGBT people was effective?

Making sure that your consultation or engagement was successful in terms of involving LGBT people is a key part of the planning process.

Here are some LGBT-specific issues for feedback, monitoring and evaluation...

As mentioned earlier, LGBT communities are small and LGBT people who are comfortable being 'out' and speaking publicly are often over-consulted as a result of this
Additionally, LGBT people often have the perception that services are not 'really' interested in their opinions, but only in ticking the correct boxes for diversity

How can you make sure that you challenge this through effective monitoring and evaluation?

First, and most obviously, make sure all participants feel that their contribution has been acknowledged and appreciated. If there is someone who seems unhappy with the meeting, take a moment to thank them for coming and assure them that their opinion has been registered
Use LGBT-specific monitoring tools to accurately measure the results of the engagement and make sure that LGBT-specific issues are not lost in the overall evaluation results

Example 1 (Community Pool)

After your public meeting, you can ask people to fill in a quick, anonymous questionnaire that includes questions such as: did you feel that the consultation process was fair, free from bias, and inclusive of all types of communities, such as LGBT or black/minority ethnic communities? Do you think all types of families would be comfortable coming to this pool?

Or your evaluation form can ask respondents to rate generic statements on a true/false scale, such as 'I felt this meeting addressed my needs' and then ask them to tick boxes for sexual orientation, gender, race, religion, and disability so that you can collate all the responses and compare them.

After you have evaluated the process, make the results of evaluation widely and easily available, along with projected outcomes
When writing the results, be as clear, brief, and specific as possible, so that participants feel that their work has produced 'real' results - connect the specific points that arose from the engagement to the end result
People must feel that their time has been well spent, and that their opinions have been taken into account, even if everything they've asked for has not been possible

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