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Ladder of Community Engagement

The Ladder of Community Engagement was developed by staff at Contra Costa Public Health Department to illustrate a range of approaches that can be used to engage communities around both traditional and emerging public health issues. It is meant to serve as a framework that can be used by local health departments to assess, evaluate and plan effective community engagement strategies to improve health. The tool has been used as the basis of trainings for local health departments throughout California.

The tool was instrumental in setting the tone for a regional dialog on the role of community engagement in addressing health inequities. A team of participants representing health departments throughout the region brainstormed to identify the key challenges facing health departments in their efforts to work with communities and highlight promising practices in approaching this work. The result was a day-long event bringing together staff from a broad range of programs including Public Health Nursing, Mental Health Services, Maternal and Child Health and Nutrition Services. The training included an opportunity for participants to share their thoughts on the benefits and limitations of their departments approaches to working with communities.

Read more in this article Community Engagement in Public Health.