Public Agenda's basic technical assistance package will guide your community or organization from the initial planning stages through the holding of one or more choicework forums on a topic of your choice. Our aim is to ensure a successful start to your public engagement initiative and build your capacity to continue this work without us.

Typically, our program contains the following components, but we are happy to speak with you about tailoring our assistance to suit your unique needs.

I. Initial Site Visit
A site visit to meet with key local sponsors and organizers of the public engagement initiative to introduce them to the Public Agenda model, to start exploring the questions and issues that will need to be addressed in the engagement initiative, and to begin planning the design of the initiative. This initial meeting is usually coupled with a version of our Principles and Strategies of Successful Public Engagement workshop.

II. Focus Group(s)
Often, before an engagement initiative is launched, it is useful to hold one or more focus groups with a cross-section of community members. Pre-engagement focus groups help you as sponsors and organizers understand how the public thinks and speaks about the issue at hand in their own words, and can offer insight into areas where the public is generally in agreement or not yet decided in their opinion about a particular topic. Understanding the public's "starting point" is critical to designing a process in which citizens will want to participate.

III. Materials Development
Public Agenda has a large number of carefully designed Choicework dialogue materials in both print and video formats. If an initiative is using an existing discussion module, the work at this stage involves customizing it to fit your needs and situation. If a new discussion module is needed, this phase of work will be more involved, and may involve additional focus groups and video production.

IV. Organizer Training
Public Agenda offers an in-depth full day of training with those who will be doing the hands-on work of setting up one or more initial community dialogues. This training reinforces the Public Agenda model, and covers both philosophical and logistical requirements for the initial dialogue such as who to invite, how to deal with the media, and who should moderate. A set of in-depth Organizer Guides will be provided.

V. Moderator and Recorder Training
Our approach to public engagement and our materials are aimed at engaging those who are not experts, especially people who do not usually participate in public meetings. Fostering civil discussion among diverse community members who rarely interact can at first seem to be an intimidating task, requiring skilled moderators who can manage time, maintain a nonpartisan stance and help people find their own voices. This one-day training session will help moderators learn and practice techniques through a combination of role play and formal presentation. And it will train recorders to work with the moderators to capture the conversations for future use.

VI. Attendance at Initial Forum and Follow-up Planning
Public Agenda will attend the first dialogue forum to offer assistance and support. Afterwards, we will meet with organizers to evaluate the forum and plan immediate and long-term follow up.

VII. General support
In addition, Public Agenda staff are available by phone and e-mail for assistance throughout the course of the initiative.