Risk Communication and Public Engagement

Public engagement in environmental health issues is at an all-time high.  Thanks to social media and online sources of information, communities are increasingly engaged in the environmental and regulatory decisions that affect their lives.  This is why an effective public engagement program is very important to the success of an environmental project. Ineffective public engagement can result in community outrage, lack of trust in the decision-making process, and delays and cancellations of projects.

Intrinsik’s risk communication experts have the right combination of scientific knowledge and communications expertise to present complex scientific information to a variety of audiences.  We have extensive community outreach experience associated with existing and proposed industrial remediation projects.  We have provided risk communication advice on complex environmental health issues to municipal, provincial, and federal governments, including Health Canada, the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, Alberta Health and British Columbia Ministry of Environment.  We have successfully led numerous public participation programs with issue analysis, community meeting planning, and risk and crisis communication policy development.  We have also developed public education and outreach materials that are in use by public health agencies and practitioners across Canada.

Intrinsik specializes in the development of customized trainings in the principles and practice of risk and crisis communication.  Our trainings include real-life case studies, hands-on practice, videotaping of participants, and discussions of risk perception, community outrage, and outreach strategies.  Intrinsik offers courses in Risk and Crisis Communication, Frontline and Executive Risk Communication, First Contact Communication, and Media Training.  Each training is customized to fit our client’s specific communication needs.  Intrinsik uses various methods to encourage focused and intimate communication between project members and the local community.  Our facilitation of community workshops has successfully opened the channels of communication among various stakeholders.

Services:

• Community meeting planning
• Community outreach strategy development
• Multicultural communication materials
• Communication training
• Translation services (Spanish and French)

Our experience tells us that communities are most likely to trust and accept the results of a process when they are provided with opportunities to participate in the process.

Our experience tells us that public consultations which encourage and facilitate input from a diverse range of stakeholders result in more robust public engagement processes and outcomes.  We work with our clients to develop traditional, on-line, and social media materials and strategies that encourage the participation of all stakeholders, including the hard-to-reach silent majority.