Two Opportunities to Help Shape Southwest Washington’s Future
SWACH’s Equity and Collaborative Impact work is creating new ways for community members to share what matters to them, from the issues affecting their daily lives to the parks and natural spaces they use across Clark County.
Heather Sheppard, SWACH’s Equity and Collaborative Impact Manager, is currently encouraging community members to participate in two surveys designed to bring more community voice into future planning and decision-making.
Helping shape SWACH’s policy priorities
SWACH’s annual Community Needs Survey asks people across Southwest Washington what they see as their communities’ most pressing needs, barriers and opportunities.
The survey helps inform the priorities SWACH brings into the legislative session and other advocacy work.
“We don’t know what those things are unless we really engage with the community,” Sheppard said. “We can go off of what we think, or even what community partners are saying they see, but it is a disservice to not ask the actual people who live here and are impacted every day by what these decisions are.”
Responses are intended to reflect the different experiences of communities throughout Clark, Klickitat and Skamania counties. What matters most in Battle Ground, for example, may look different from the priorities of residents in Goldendale or other parts of the region.
The survey asks participants to identify community needs and share what they are experiencing as challenges, barriers and possible solutions. Responses can be submitted anonymously.
For Sheppard, hearing directly from community members is an important part of ensuring SWACH’s advocacy reflects the people most affected by policy decisions.
“If we get those voices to be heard, then we’re doing our job,” she said.
Bringing community voice into the future of Clark County parks
SWACH is also partnering with Clark County to help gather community input for long-term planning around parks, trails, recreational spaces and natural areas.
SWACH is serving as one of approximately a dozen community navigators helping connect residents with the planning process and make it easier for more people to participate.
The county’s planning process will help guide how it invests in parks, trails and recreational spaces over the next 20 years. Community feedback will help identify how people currently use those spaces, what may be missing and what residents would like to see prioritized in the future.
Sheppard said the work fits closely with SWACH’s focus on health equity.
Access to parks and natural spaces can affect physical activity, mental health, social connection and transportation. The way those spaces are designed can also determine who is able to use them.
“This is an opportunity to include the voices of people who are most impacted by not having access to these things, and also the voices that perhaps don’t get included in traditional feedback gathering,” Sheppard said.
She pointed to accessibility improvements in public spaces as an example of how community feedback can lead to meaningful changes, as well as opportunities to improve connections between neighborhoods, trails and transportation routes.
The Clark County survey is available through Nov. 1, with the survey available in multiple languages.
Community input starts with participation
Although the two surveys focus on different topics, they share a common goal: making sure future decisions are informed by the people who live in the communities those decisions will affect.
For SWACH’s Equity and Collaborative Impact work, gathering that input is not simply about collecting responses. It is about creating opportunities for community priorities and lived experiences to help shape what comes next.