Community development
The classic customer engagement approach is wedded to hierarchy, unequal power, paternalism and achieve an organisation-driven outcome. It’s an anachronism, and a disservice to customers.
It means learning from the work of people like Hilary Cottam and Cormac Russell on asset-based community development. The premise of their argument is services should work with people, not do things to them, and should draw on a wide range of assets in improving outcomes. Their insights are especially relevant at a time when long-term conditions represent a growing proportion of need and demand, and where there is evidence of the benefits that result when people with these conditions are supported to take greater responsibility for managing them.