Dean Merlino is an expert in increasing the effectiveness of community engagement and cultural practices. He can help you to grasp and trust the knowledge and voice of communities, working in collaboration to achieve meaningful and sustainable outcomes. By recognising core values and pinpointing target markets, Dean brings these elements together to tailor organisations’ successful engagement strategy. Dean recognises that the ultimate aims for a community are capacity building, independence and autonomy. Give someone a project, and they’ll engage for a day. Teach someone to make their own projects, and they’ll engage for a lifetime.
Dean provides expertise in the following areas:
Community practice development
Understanding the complexities and contradictions of communities
Designing programs and projects based on active listening methods, recognising community needs
Engagement
Dean will work with your team to improve your understanding of engagement practices and the possibilities of working with communities
Conduct coherent engagement planning
Deepen your relationship with the varied voices of communities and stakeholders and shaping your engagement through their needs and desires
Develop a sustainable engagement practice that is robust and flexible, increasing value to the community
Cultural policy and development
Cultural development planning and understanding culture as one of the five pillars of development
Learn how to make cultural development the key building block of organisational structures and policies
Make meaningful frames of cultural value for project and program development
If you dream of making your practice more effective, CONTACT DEAN to arrange a meeting.
