Community & Stakeholder Facilitation
Community engagement invites relevant stakeholders to be involved in the decisions that impact their lives and those they love. Communities can identify the problems and also can be the source of creative and innovative ideas about relevant and workable solutions. We offer group facilitation and listening sessions as opportunities for input and decision-making that lead to the best answer to complex, pressing, and urgent problems.
We draw from design thinking, appreciative inquiry, and art-based approaches. Our work is adaptive, responsive, and flexible to meet your unique needs and help you reach the best plans and decisions.
Our work applies to:
Public engagement
Community needs assessments
Strategic planning
Asset mapping
Program planning and intervention development
Capacity-building and technical assistance
Current Projects
Phillips Square Design
Co-design with the community
Phillips Square Design is a project of the City of Boston, Boston Transportation Department to redesign a tactical plaza in Chinatown. This redesigned plaza will help address green infrastructure, heat resilience, and make needed improvements to the public realm in Chinatown. As the Community Engagement lead, CHIC is working with Sasaki, the lead design firm, to plan and implement a comprehensive and inclusive community-wide engagement strategy that reaches diverse stakeholders including Chinese-speaking residents, youth, families, leaders, residents. Bilingual engagement strategies for the design process include focus groups, an on-line community survey, pop-up events, and design charrettes.
Chinatown CLEAN
Combatting indoor air pollution of Chinatown businesses
Chinatown CLEAN is a project funded by the Air Pollution Control Commission of the City of Boston and led by Chinatown Main Street. This project focuses on improving indoor air pollution of restaurants in Chinatown. Bilingual/bicultural high school youth in Boston are developing social media reels to educate businesses about the dangers of indoor air pollution and how to mitigate it. Five restaurants in Chinatown will be chosen through a mini-grant program to purchase equipment to help reduce indoor air pollution exposure. This is a project being done in collaboration with Dr. MyDzung Chu of Tufts Medical Center and Dr. Gary Adamkiewicz of the Harvard School of Public Health.
YouLead
Building youth leadership
YouLead is a new project through the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center. It is funded by the Office of Problem Gambling Services at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. YouLead aims to empower and engage youth from Boston, Quincy, Malden, and Everett in efforts to address problem gambling. Through YouLead, three community based organizations will offer a variety of activities and interventions aimed to promote youth leadership development, academic and mentorship support and community education on problem gambling. The three organizations include Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center, Chinese Cultural Center, and Everett Haitian Community Center.
RISE 2.0
The power of lived experience
Project RISE 2.0 is designed to provide culturally and linguistically appropriate information and resources to immigrant families about problem gambling. Project RISE 2.0 centers on community agencies' critical and central role in supporting vulnerable immigrant communities. It recognizes that to serve the immigrant population well, community members must be respected, listened to, and have a sense of belonging. The project utilizes Family Connectors to provide culturally and linguistically responsive information and resources to immigrant communities about problem gambling. Education and support happen through Family Connectors who work in community-based organizations that have trust in the community. Within these organizations, the Family Connectors can raise awareness and increase education around the harms associated with problem gambling and related issues, are knowledgeable about their community, and can serve as a resource-repository to assist immigrant families in navigating complex systems where they may seek support.
