foxtrot & echo

We are a small community engagement company, based in Inverloch, Victoria, primarily serving the local government community. We help local government and other organisations design and deliver great community engagement so you can confidently share the results with your decision makers, build stronger relationships and a positive reputation with your community, and have it all delivered on time and on budget.

We offer:

Tailored service delivery, ensuring that each project is designed to meet the unique needs of your organisation and your community.
Comprehensive service range, from planning and design to reporting and training.
Commitment to building stronger relationships and reputations between organisations and your communities.

Our approach:

Easy To Deliver: By planning thoroughly from the beginning, including clear objectives, negotiables and non-negotiables, stakeholder mapping and analysis, risk assessment and communications plan, we make it easy to deliver the engagement plan.
Easy To Understand: We work with the project team to find the plain English way to describe and explain technical and complex material. We present information and instructions clearly, as simply as possible, and in ways that suit the communities we’re hoping to engage.
Easy To Be Involved: Wherever possible, we go to where the community are, rather than asking them to come to us, when we engage. And we go at the right time for the community. We always offer multiple ways to get involved– such as a survey, a submission or a workshop – to suit people’s preferred ways of engaging.
Easy To Follow Up: We insist that our projects “Close the Loop” with participants and the broader community. We use engagement summary reports to share what we heard from the community and project updates are built into communication plans for when the decisions are made, to let the community know the outcomes.

foxtrot & echo often team up with other consultants who provide additional experienced staff, add value to projects and create a holistic approach to engagement. We are confident that with our network, we can deliver what you need.

Emily Physick

When I was twenty, I went to work in the travel industry, with dreams of cheap airfares to support my wanderlust. Whilst working in London, that came true on a few memorable occasions (hello Reykjavik!).

What I discovered I loved the most about those jobs was planning itineraries so that travellers could see and do everything they wanted to in the allotted time. Knowing which sites should be an all-day visit and which could be done in two hours and not feel rushed. How long it took to get from A to B, and when they should give themselves a break.

Planning a facilitation session or an engagement program is not dissimilar to planning an itinerary, and it brings just as much satisfaction when you get it right.

I also loved using the phonetic alphabet. It was like a secret world of talking in code. Hence our name, foxtrot & echo (F & E for facilitation & engagement).

Before branching out on my own in 2019, I spent over 12 years working in community engagement inside local government. As well as planning and running community engagement projects, I built the capacity and capability of those organisations to understand, deliver and effectively use community engagement. I was involved in everything from establishing processes and online platforms to staff and Councillor training. I loved asking both colleagues and community for input, listening to their lived experiences and being able to report back about how those experiences affected the decision making of Council.

Since then, I have been fortunate to work with a number of local governments with their projects as an external consultant–with everything from simple facilitation of information sessions to deliberative community panels. I’m experienced in designing and facilitating online and in-person workshops, survey design, online engagement webpages, analysis of results and report writing, and staff training. Every organisation and every community is unique, but the processes I use ensure a positive experience for everyone.

To find out more about what I can do and how I can help you with your project, please get in touch.

I’m always happy to have a chat over the phone or online.

Or simply email me and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.