The Praxis Group™ | Involving People.

The Southwest Alberta Sustainable Community Initiative (SASCI), in collaboration with the Municipal District of Pincher Creek (the MD), spearheaded a Community Values Assessment (CVA) intended to help the MD consider community values more effectively in decision-making and develop better practices for land use and land management.  The goals of the CVA were to identify and assess community values related to the natural, social and economic environment.  Praxis designed a three-phase consultation process to meet the objectives for the CVA.  The first phase of the process involved a random sample telephone survey of 332 households within the MD to identify commonly held values, conflicting values, and the level of importance of those values.  For the second phase, five facilitated small group sessions were conducted with a range of stakeholders from the MD to generate a prioritized inventory of community values, to solicit in-depth feedback from participants regarding the priority values identified, and to identify participants’ expectations for the MD with regard to preserving community values.  The third phase of the consultation process saw participants from the small group sessions reconvene to review the findings from the first two phases of the consultation and to provide feedback regarding the next steps in the CVA process.  Praxis prepared comprehensive, summary and technical reports detailing the results of the consultation.