Community and Stakeholder Engagement

Community and Stakeholder Engagement
Facilitating Meaningful Connections and Discussions

At Cross Cultural Consultants (CCC), community and stakeholder Engagement is at the heart of what we do. We understand the significance of forging strong connections with the communities we serve and the stakeholders we collaborate with. Our commitment to community and stakeholder engagement goes beyond mere words; it is a cornerstone of our approach to building sustainable relationships and fostering mutual understanding. The team at CCC see ourselves as the bridge to meaningful interactions in even the most remote corners of Australia. Our strength lies in the profound and enduring relationships we’ve nurtured across many communities, especially in the Northern Territory. These connections make us your trusted partner for comprehensive community and stakeholder engagement services.

Community Engagement

We understand the importance of hearing every voice. Community engagement is all about inclusivity. It’s the process of involving the public in your initiatives to ensure their perspectives, needs, and aspirations are integrated into your project’s outcomes. At CCC, we’re dedicated to creating spaces where communities actively participate in decision-making, shaping projects that align with their core values and dreams. We facilitate dialogue, build trust, and empower communities to become co-creators of their own future.

Stakeholder Engagement

Stakeholder engagement, on the other hand, focuses on specific individuals or groups who wield significant influence or impact on your project. It’s about nurturing strategic partnerships, aligning shared interests, and fostering collaboration. CCC excels in identifying and engaging with key stakeholders, whether they are community leaders, government bodies, or industry influencers. We help you navigate this intricate web of relationships to garner support, drive change, and ensure project success.

In all our endeavours, we bring our unique expertise and the profound connections we’ve built to create engagement strategies that truly resonate. Cross Cultural Consultants is your ally in engaging, connecting, and collaborating, turning stakeholders and communities into the driving force behind projects and initiatives.

Recent Projects

CCC worked in partnership with i2i to facilitate a series of national consultations with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples across all States and Territories, to inform the ILSC’s National Indigenous Land and Sea Strategy (NILSS).

The NILSS is the ILSC’s key policy document, setting out the strategic direction for the period. The NILSS guides the performance and functions of the ILSC. It presents the ILSC’s priority focus areas, program delivery and commitment to building enduring stakeholder relationships as a framework for helping Indigenous people enjoy opportunities and benefits that the return of country and its management brings. Their strategy is to drive action and change that strengthens the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

The ILSC wanted to ensure its business is aligned with the needs and aspirations of Indigenous Australians, and to ensure their relationship with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples is based on mutual understanding. They made a commitment to learn from each other and work together to achieve shared goals and deliver ongoing communication.

Throughout the project, CCC undertook a series of community engagement sessions in Darwin, Katherine, Tennant Creek, Alice Springs, Tiwi Islands, Broome, Burketown, Cairns, Karratha, Perth, Kununurra, Mount Isa, Nhulunbuy, Townsville, and Weipa.

You can read a copy of the NILSS here.

In a project co-led by CCC and Deloitte, our team worked in a multi-disciplinary project consortium to review the Northern Territory’s 43 Town Camps on behalf of the Northern Territory Department of Housing and Community Development. The unique and comprehensive nature of this project necessitated the coming together of a wide range of parties in order to deliver on the key objectives of the review. This included 5 organisations working together with all levels of Government, Indigenous organisations, service providers and the Town Camp residents themselves. The review involved a large complex consultation process across remote and urban communities.

With the help of Aboriginal Community Engagement Specialists (ACES), CCC guided informed conversations in each of the Town Camps. This process was centred on the inclusion of residents by allowing them to tell the story of the reality of their current living conditions. Engagements were also conducted in first language where possible.

The results of the team’s initial consultations were then transcribed into culturally appropriate story boarding to provide clarity to the Town Camp residents about the key issues and concerns that accurately depicted the reality of their day to day life. The story boards formed the foundation for a vision to be developed, unique to each induvial community.

The key areas of the review included:

legislation and governance arrangements;
leasing and tenure arrangements;
housing quality, management and ownership;
municipal and essential infrastructure;
service delivery arrangements;
community aspirations; and
potential economic development opportunities.

The Australian Government is committing to replacing Community Development Program (CDP) with a new program that provides real jobs, proper wages and decent conditions – developed in partnership with First Nations people.

The design and development of the new program is focused on lessons learned from new approaches and locally co-designed and delivered trials. Ideas and lessons generated from these trials such as; recognising existing unpaid roles within communities; providing real support for training and upskilling; delivering assistance for participants to overcome challenges and barries; and exploring new business and partnership opportunities, will assist to inform the development and implementation of the new program and continue to develop the evidence base for ideas and approaches that work in remote areas.

CCC has been working with NIAA, Community Development Program (CDP) service providers, Commonwealth, State and Local Governments, and First Nations people and communities to inform reforms to the policy and delivery of employment services across remote Australia. This collective experience has been instrumental in understanding policy modifications and evolving the service delivery framework of the CDP throughout remote regions of Australia.

CCC has orchestrated a series of engagement sessions with local communities, CDP providers, businesses, government entities, and co-design groups. CCC also played a pivotal role in facilitating important CDP focused events such as Minister Burney’s Remote Employment Roundtable in 2022 and the 2022 Community Development Program Provider Forum.

Cross Cultural Consultants (CCC) worked in partnership with KPMG to complete an engagement which involved working with interpreters and the National Indigenous Australians Agency to support Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations to co-design two new Fourth Action Plan measures as a part of the national plan to reduce violence against women and children. This project as undertaken to ensure any future service delivery model was holistic, culturally appropriate and trauma informed for each measure delivered.

Several Aboriginal and Community Controlled Organisations were involved including; ARDS Aboriginal Corporation, Miwatj Health Aboriginal Corporation, Darwin Aboriginal and Islander Women’s Shelter, Darwin Indigenous Men’s Service and Wurli Wurlinjang Aboriginal Health Service.

As part of this engagement, CCC consulted with the organisational leaders to confirm the most effective and culturally appropriate way for eliciting feedback and ideas from the organisations about the design of several measures to respond to domestic and family violence. CCC also worked with the interpreter service and the organisations to ensure that the interpreters engaged did not have any kinship links with the stakeholders.

Working in partnership with KPMG as part of a national consultation process for the Department of Social Services (DSS), CCC facilitated community and stakeholder engagement to help the Government understand ways to strengthen support for families and children to achieve better outcomes through a review of family and children’s programs.

This provided an opportunity for service providers, academic institutions, families with children, peak bodies and research centres to voice their views and perspectives on the current and future program funding provided by the Government and how they could achieve the best possible outcomes for families and children across Australia. During the period of consultation, over 400 stakeholders attended the sessions in 30 locations across Australia through a series of Roundtable sessions and focus group forums.

Key deliverables on this project:

Reviewing of documentation including draft stakeholder engagement and communication plans, draft key messages, draft discussion paper and draft stakeholder analysis.
Facilitation of roundtable sessions, targeting service providers of Family and Children (FaC) services, peak bodies, service providers not funded under FaC activity, academics, and Government officials.
Facilitation of Indigenous forums, targeting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff from service providers as well as community leaders and peak bodies.
Facilitation of focus groups targeting families and children.
Weekly project reviews.
High level individual consultation summary reports.
Input into the overall report content to include Indigenous terms of reference and a unique perspective.

CCC worked in partnership with KPMG to develop a response to homelessness and rough sleeping in the Darwin, Palmerston, and Katherine regions, as well as assess the Alice Springs Apmere Mwerre Visitor Park to better understand client utilisation patterns, including length of stay; frequency and purpose of stay to identify extent of utilisation by people experiencing homelessness.

The community engagement component of this project was lead and facilitated by CCC’s expert team, in conjunction with interpreters, who were employed to manage the culturally appropriate flow of information between the community, key stakeholders, and the client. Valuable information was gathered in one-on-one interviews conducted by CCC’s Aboriginal Community Engagement Specialists (AECS), who were local Aboriginal people with familial ties into the homeless communities in Katherine, Darwin and Palmerston.

The CCC team designed a survey to be easy and relatable to Aboriginal people along with a comprehensive engagement plan to identify the best time and locations for delivery of the survey. The AECS used narrative interviews to deliver the survey in either language, Kriol or Aboriginal English. Over 300 homeless people were surveyed, making this project one of the largest of its kind in recent years.