In response to Scott's excellent points, I'd like to add this bit,
from the same blog item I quoted from before:

"Democratic reform should include shifting some of the power wielded
by Canada's largest governments downward, to the municipal level. In
this way - provided revenues also get shifted downward - local
governments, which end up facing the consequences of failed upper-tier
policy, can be held answerable to their neighbours. More power and
resources held in the hands of local politicians could only encourage
healthier, sustainable community economic development."

The point is that life happens at the community level. That's where we
experience sickness, health, life, death, job loss or employment.
Given that each community is unique and communities know best what
their problems are and which solutions will work, it's the government
entity closest to the people which should be empowered to address
these issues.

"Often—at least in our jurisdiction—engagement most often equates to
'we needed to formally demonstrate that we are concerned for your
concerns, so we sent you a questionnaire to fill out'."

Yup, that about sums up my experience.

Ocean
-- 
WISE Book - Policies of Exclusion, Poverty & Health: Stories from the front
Podcast Channel: http://bcseawalker.podbean.com/
Personal Blog: Challenging the Commonplace - and other irreverent activities
http://challengingthecommonplace.blogspot.com/

On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 10:23 AM, Scott Wolfe <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Part of this appears to be discrepancy over semantics. From our experience
> and research with community-governed health centres 'engagement' can mean
> things as simple and meaningless as 'build it and invite them' fora, hosted
> by government stakeholders, whilst 'participation' can mean things as robust
> as actual participation by community members in the process of managing
> health services and deciding on priority health areas. Often—at least in our
> jurisdiction—engagement most often equates to "we needed to formally
> demonstrate that we are concerned for your concerns, so we sent you a
> questionnaire to fill out."

-------------------
Problems/Questions? Send it to Listserv owner: [log in to unmask]


To unsubscribe, send the following message in the text section -- NOT the subject header --  to [log in to unmask]

SIGNOFF SDOH

DO NOT SEND IT BY HITTING THE REPLY BUTTON. THIS SENDS THE MESSAGE TO THE ENTIRE LISTSERV AND STILL DOES NOT REMOVE YOU.

To subscribe to the SDOH list, send the following message to [log in to unmask] in the text section, NOT in the subject header.

SUBSCRIBE SDOH yourfirstname yourlastname

To post a message to all 1200+ subscribers, send it to [log in to unmask]
Include in the Subject, its content, and location and date, if relevant.

For a list of SDOH members, send a request to [log in to unmask]

To receive messages only once a day, send the following message to [log in to unmask]
SET SDOH DIGEST

To view the SDOH archives, go to: https://listserv.yorku.ca/archives/sdoh.html