Today, more than ever, citizens expect a say in decisions that affect their lives. Furthermore, laws and regulations often require public participation, shared decision-making, openness, and public disclosure via town meetings, citizen advisory panels, and/or other forms of public forums. Jason Associates Corporation (Jason) helps clients respond to the demand for a public role in decision-making, particularly on controversial projects. Jason's communication specialists develop and implement strategic approaches, as well as public outreach and participation activities, that help negotiate controversy. Jason has extensive experience in designing and implementing public involvement and communication programs that help clients and their stakeholders work together to achieve legally defensible and mutually acceptable solutions. Jason’s public involvement and communications staff includes both junior- and senior-level professionals. Together, these staff members have successfully performed every task common to National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) public involvement, and have provided the full spectrum of communications support including: Developing public participation plans Planning and implementing public meetings (ranging from formal public hearings, to conferences and informal workshops) Managing all meeting logistics Developing and conducting public opinion surveys (including data acquisition, analy-sis, and reporting) Designing public outreach and media relations plans in support of program objectives Convening advisory groups Managing comment-response documents Maintaining information repositories, mailing lists, and telephone hotlines Preparing communications products (such as brochures, fact sheets, newsletters, videos, press releases, public notices, and public service announcements) Innovations that have been used successfully by the Jason public involvement staff include distributing copies of large documents on CD-ROMs to save on document repro-duction costs and developing multimedia applications for interactive information kiosks for use at public meetings and shopping malls. The multimedia applications (available in a PC or Macintosh format) allow interested stakeholders to go to the depth of information they desire on any specific topic. This tool visually demonstrates and informs the public on the impact of a particular proposed action. Click here to view the complete Public Involvement fact sheet in PDF format.