Hosting a Community Conversation

Want to start a Community Conversation? Use this guide to get started.

Table of Contents

Identify Your Audience and Set Goals For Your Conversation

Who do you want to reach? Who can help you reach your intended audience? What do you hope the outcome will be? How will you know you've achieved what you set out to achieve?

Before diving in head first, it's important to understand who your audience is, and have clear goals in place for your conversation. If you don't, your conversation may not have the impact you want regardless of how good your intentions are. Part One of SAMHSA's Planning Guide for Community Conversations provides a detailed overview of ways in which you can identify your target audience. Locally, it's helpful to partner with individuals and organizations who have a presence in your community and can help identifying the audience and goals. 

Decide On The Format And Location

Once you've determined your target audience, how many people might be attending, and the goals of the conversation, it's time to identify a good location and an ideal format for your conversation. 

A good location will be warm, inviting, and safe. It should also be easily accessible to the intended audience and not be at a location that may negatively impact the flow of conversation. For example, hosting a conversation in a mental health treatment facility may limit your ability to attract an audience that included individuals who are adverse to seeking treatment due to the stigmas around mental illness. Community leaders, your local DMH site office, or Recovery Learning Community might be able to offer some suggestions. Speak to the people who know your target audience the best about what the ideal location for a conversation would be. Houses of worship, community centers, nonprofit organizations, libraries, etc. tend to work very well. 

Once you have a target audience, an idea of the how many people you think might attend, and a location, you can decide how you want to format the conversation. For example, if you anticipate a large group, you may want break it into smaller "Conversation Groups" to spark more dialogue between attendees. 

The Discussion Guide and Information Brief sections of the SAMHSA Toolkit for Community Conversations About Mental Health provide additional information to help you structure your conversation and select topics for discussion.

Recruit Facilitators and Participants

Now that you have your audience, location, and conversation format, it's time to determine who will be in the room. 

Strategies for recruiting participants vary depending on the community; but you may find that some groups may be more challenging to recruit as they may not typically be invited/involved, or they may not feel they will be welcome. Some of these groups might include youth, individuals with lived experience, or culturally and economically diverse populations. It's important to identify individuals and organizations close to these groups to assist you in your planning and recruitment processes. Otherwise the impact of your conversation might be negated, regardless of how positive your intentions are. For deeper reading on recruiting conversation participants, visit SAMHSA's Conversation Planning Toolkit

Facilitators may be optional depending on your audience and format. The facilitators’role is to create a productive space where people from different backgrounds can talk about mental health. In order for the facilitator to be effective, potential facilitators include people who have knowledge about mental health or may be skilled in facilitation. SAMHSA provides the following examples of potential facilitators:

  • People with lived experienced with mental illness
  • Peer support workers
  • Mental health professionals
  • Mediators
  • School counselors
  • Faith leaders
  • People trained in conflict resolution

Finalize Conversation Specifics

With the location, participants, and facilitators finalized, it's time to finalize the specifics of the conversation. These may appear to be details at first glance, but they can have a pivotal role on the impact of your event. 

Scheduling: Determining a date and time will likely depend partially on the availability of your chosen space, but it's important to consider your audience when finalizing the schedule. Things to consider:

  • Are there other community events that conflict with your chosen date or time?
  • Is the date/time convenient for participants?
  • Is there enough time for participants to adjust their schedules in order to ensure they can attend?
  • Do you have enough time to fully plan the conversation? 

Materials and Resources: When you have determined what your intended outcomes are, it's important that you have the materials and resources attendees need to ensure you reach the intended outcomes. For example, if you are looking to connect an under-served community with treatment and resources, make sure you have sufficient information (and possibly even representatives from local agencies, providers, advocates, etc.) to distribute. Plan on providing writing materials, stationary, name tags, etc. that might be useful. 

Additional Logistics and Accommodations: Other things to consider when planning the conversations could include:

  • Child care. 
  • Translators. 
  • Refreshments. 
  • Carpooling and transportation arrangements. 
  • Arrangements for hearing- or visually impaired participants.

Try to think of everything that will make it easy for your and your participants to leave feeling that the conversation was successful and had a positive impact.

Plan For Follow-Up

Depending on your audience and the goals of the conversation, it may be important to plan on how to follow-up afterwards. In most cases, the hosts, facilitators, and participants will all takeaway new information from the conversation. A proper follow-up will ensure that ideas are shared and goals continue to be reached. SAMHSA's Planning Guide contains detailed approaches to following-up after a community conversation. 

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