Does this sound familiar?

• Are your projects failing to move forward because of public opposition?
• Are your staff regularly faced with an angry public at meetings?
• Is your organization perceived as untrustworthy or unresponsive?
• Is decision-making fraught with polarized viewpoints and stalled on how to move ahead?
• Does it feel like your relationship with the people you serve or interact with is all about us versus them?
• Is the media covering your every move?

Maybe it is time to step back and try a new way of engaging.

This two-day training course combines the work of risk communication expert Dr. Peter Sandman with the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) core concepts for meaningful and effective public engagement.

In these challenging times of environmental, health, cultural, economic and social change this course will give you strategies and behaviours to enhance quality outcomes, even when communities and stakeholders are emotional or outraged.

Development of this course was led by Stephani Roy McCallum in 2009, and an update of course materials in 2017 reflects the current context of today’s charged environment. The workshop is practical, hands-on participatory mix of video, lecture, group exercises and decades of real world experience in engaging the public in high stakes, high conflict situations.

You will learn:

• How to identify and assess the root causes of public frustration, anger, and outrage.
• Understand 12 factors and reasons for people’s reactions and be better able to predict and prevent public anger.
• Learn 6 strategies to prevent or reduce public outrage, to make room for more effective public engagement to take place.
• Specific tools & techniques for working with the angriest people.
• How to better understand stakeholder motivations and how past experience impacts present participation
• How to address internal barriers and resistance to trying new ways of engaging with the public.
• How to ask questions and engage meaningfully with value and empathy.
• How your attitude and behaviour impacts public anger, and how to show up more effectively
• A new way of thinking about public outrage, and enhanced skills, knowledge and behaviours to apply in your next public engagement challenge