Community Issue Forums: An Innovative Way to Navigate Difficult Conversations

Many public health and community benefit organizations are currently working to establish trust across a wide range of relevant partners, community members, and organizations. Trust can be tricky to navigate these days, especially when it comes to public health and policy. One possible framework to navigate these tough conversations while ensuring engagement across a range of perspectives is Community Issue Forums. These forums can be framed in multiple ways, such as Community Action Forums, which “involve community members in identifying actions they and others could take collectively to prevent, reduce, or resolve public issues and problems.” Want to learn more? The Extension Foundation has a helpful How-to-Guide for Onsite and Online Community Engagement for start-to-finish details on planning, implementing, and facilitating issue forums to fit your community. You can also read about case studies where this tool has been used in rural and urban communities in both in-person and online formats. View the Creating Successful Issues Forums–How-to Guide for Onsite and Online Community Engagement via the Extension Foundation website.

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