Did You Reach the Communities as Intended?
Assessing and defining who your court engages should be one element of your evaluation. Who are your target audiences? What voices are missing from the conversation?
A diverse and inclusive target audience is critical for the success of public engagement. All the pilot courts involved in this project recognized the importance that they reach out to diverse voices in the communities they serve. Long-standing structural inequities have historically excluded racial and ethnic minorities from positions of power or influence. Not only does greater inclusion increase the range of input and experiences your court hears - thus producing more informed outcomes - but it helps build or re-build trust in courts and strengthens relationships with communities and partners in your jurisdiction.
To assess whether you reached you target audiences you will need to gather information about your engagement participants and their backgrounds.
Select items to achieve these goals were included at the pilot engagements.
Note: To see how the questions are formatted and phrased in context, view the pre and post surveys.
Pre-Survey Items
The pre-survey questions asked participants for self-report information so the pilot courts could ascertain whether they reached diverse voices of various ages, gender, education levels, socioeconomic status, leadership/non-leadership roles, and levels of experience with the courts.
- Participants’ basic demographic information (age, race, gender, education, zip code)
- Do you play any leadership roles in your community? (“Yes” and “No”). If yes, what leadership role(s) do you play?
- If you were asked to come here today by a group other than the courts, please provide the name of the group:___________.
- About how many experiences have you personally had with the courts in the last 5 years?
- Please indicate if you have had each of the following experiences with the courts before today: (“Served on a jury” “Defendant” “Witness” “Plaintiff” “Participant in a juvenile justice or child welfare case” “Probationer” “Engaged as member of public” “Other, please describe”)
- How familiar are you with the [name of] Court? (followed by an ordered 5-point scale ranging from "Extremely familiar," "Very familiar," "Somewhat familiar," "Slightly familiar," "Not at all familiar")
Post-Survey Items
The post-engagement evaluation survey asked all participants to think about groups or viewpoints that may have been missing from the engagement activities.
- Were any groups of people or viewpoints missing from today’s engagement? (“Yes” “No”)
- How much did the missing persons or viewpoints negatively impact the engagement? (followed by an ordered scale ranging from "A great deal," "Some," "A little," "Not at all")
- What specific persons or groups should be invited to future engagements, who are not here today?