Cohesion is about relationships between different groups. They might be defined by race or faith, but that will depend on the area. Differences such as age, income, place of residence or even lifestyle, may be the cause of divides in some areas.

Cohesion is not about trying to make everyone the same. It is about giving people the skills to respect difference, to cope with change and welcome new community members. Alongside these skills there needs to be a shared sense of how to behave in public and relate to others.

Achieving better cohesion is about common sense solutions that will help people get along better, that is what will make any vision a reality. Building cohesion is about trying to influence attitudes and behaviours that exist within any complex social system in which there are multiple influences, many of which are unpredictable.

Government and others often use various terms:

• Community Consultation
• Community Engagement
• Community Involvement
• Community Empowerment

These are used interchangeably by people to cover a whole host of activities.  Unfortunately they aren’t always used consistently!  Terms like Engagement, Consultation and also Cohesion are terms usually used in a variety of contexts with various connotations.

Further detail can be found in Stronger Together - The Community Engagement Framework, which can be accessed by clicking the link on the right of this page.