Community trust
One of the biggest challenges I'm finding of late is when I deliver project information to community members and am met with responses such as, 'you're lying to us' or 'that's not true'.
On 2 March, 2010 at the Melville Recreation Centre, Western Power held a community comments session geared towards the current Melville & Fremantle power options project.
The focus was to build upon previous community information gathering activities, so that a community output report could be provided to Western Power's technical experts and decision makers for consideration - here's a copy of the session output: community comments session output and questions.
During my time with this project, one of the things that has constantly stood out to me is the great sense of distrust that I perceive some members of the community hold for Western Power. Listening to the crowd during the March 2 session, along with reading materials such as the community comments session output and questions, various media articles or even a website created by one of the local residents has really got me thinking about how much project misinformation there is out there and on how a lot of this misinformation seems to stem from a place of distrust towards Western Power.
It makes me wonder how we can improve the relationship between Western Power and the community so that we can better work together towards providing sustainable power solutions for the entire community - both today and for future generations.
What do you think that Western Power should do? Do you think that the community mistrust is really warranted or is it possibly misplaced anger and frustration driven by a dislike of major infrastructure within our local communities?
Do any of you have similar issues in your jobs and if so, what do you do to improve your customer relationships?
Sandi
Reader Comments (2)
I went along to the community session in Bayswater and being a community engagement specialist in my own organisation it was interesting to watch how your team dealt with community questions, concerns and fears. To me the response did not seem genuine but more of a learned script that failed to acknowledge people's real worries. You ask why you are distrusted? That is why. People are more sophisticated than you give them credit for and are able to recognise spin when its spun.
Hi Brenda
Thanks for your comment and apologies for the belated reply.
Sometimes when a difficult message has to be delivered it's hard for members of the community to accept us as authentic and sincere.
We absolutely recognise the community are informed and engaged. It is for this reason we have re-shaped our engagement approach.
It's also important to recognise that 'trust' is something earned over time; our intention is to continue to be accessible and available to the community so that we can build those relationships.
Thanks again for the comment.