The People’s Voice Media team are pleased to tell you that we have recently started work on two new Erasmus+ funded projects with our European partners. Earlier this month we went to the kick-off meetings for the Co-Engage and Eurospectives projects.

Co-Engage is exploring co-design methodologies from across Europe and Eurospectives builds on our previous Digital Natives project, to explore different digital storytelling approaches. We will be contributing to both of these projects by researching and presenting case studies on relevant topics as part of the knowledge exchange process and by taking the lead on dissemination.

Watch this space to see how the projects develop!

Working with communities in Germany, Hungary, Italy and the United Kingdom, the VOICITYS project and People’s Voice Media trained residents in specific neighbourhoods as Community Reporters who have used these skills to tell, understand and share their own stories on topics and issues pertinent to diversity where they live. This report provides an overview of this methodology and its implementation within the project, the findings from the stories gathered, and pan-European reflections on emergent trends across the dataset.  Download the full report below.

In November, the Our Voices team made their way to Spain, to participate in a transnational partnership meeting. With the intellectual outputs – the curriculum, the toolkit and the resource bank – ready to be finalised, now was the time for the partnership to start thinking about the impact they can make with these products and turn their focus to dissemination and sustainability.

As part of the meeting, the team also participated in a radio workshop ran by INTRAS, Radio Atlántida. This is a pioneering activity started by INTRAS aimed at improving people’s communication skills “on air” (i.e. reading articles and books, film festivals shows, radio slots) and provide different and innovative solutions to empower people with mental health issues. Partners were all interviewed about what they think about the development of the project.

The next step for the project will be the piloting of the Digital Curation Training Programme in each partner’s context. Each partner will implement aspects of the Our Voices methodology via training programmes and workshop in order to explore to what extent this intellectual output can be adapted to different target groups. Also, during the next few months, relevant stakeholders in higher education, health sector, user-run organizations, informal trainer providers and research/policy institutes will be participating in webinars with the project team. We will ask them to give feedback on the outputs created in terms of their future usages and accreditation of the curriculum.

Following this, the main focus of the project will be on the multiplier events that are set to take place in the UK and Germany. Full details of these events will be available soon, including how you can attend!

When looking at the lives of young people in Finnish society, it is important to view them through a lens that takes into account the multifaceted nature of marginalisation and inclusion. As part of the CoSIE project, undergraduates from Turku University of Applied Sciences have been trained as Community Reporters and using an insight storytelling methodology they have gathered stories of other young people who are encountering a range of challenges in their lives. This insight has been used as the basis of a short report on youth marginalisation.

To access these young people and hear about their lives, the Community Reporters used their personal contacts and went out onto the streets of Turku. This enabled them to engage with young people who are less likely to be engaged with formal services, and through this began to uncover some of the issues that these young people are facing.

What the stories suggest is that having a purpose in life helps young people to create a positive sense of identity, which supports their overall wellbeing. This focus and sense of self helps young people to tackle the difficulties they face. However, as this insight report will detail, equating purpose to ‘having a job’ and linking this to ‘improved wellbeing’ is too simple a correlation to make. The key is that the work or purpose must be something that is fulfilling for the young person. Find out more about this work by downloading the full report below.

Working with AQuA, People’s Voice Media are about to start piloting the use of storytelling and story curation processes in enhancing person-centred care in health care settings. As part of this pilot, the team are embedding innovative and creative elements related to storytelling as part of a wider person-centred care programme for therapy staff working within the NHS. During this programme, workshops will be held that will enable staff to gather patient stories, analyse them to ascertain their key findings and produce a plan as to how they can share this learning with their wider team. Following the workshops, PVM will work with AQuA to produce a short film that highlights the key findings from this work.

The techniques being adopted in the pilot have been designed as part of the Our Voices project which has designed a pan-European and multi-medium approach to story curation. Working with this methodology and its tools such as knowledge mobilisation strategies, the UK partner and project lead – People’s Voice Media – are seeking to unlock the hidden insights in stories to help create better health care services for the future.

Rachel Bryers – Person Centred Care Lead at AQuA – says “gathering patient’s stories can be the first step in recognising that people with lived experience are often best placed to advise us on how we can deliver our services in a way that makes a positive difference to their lives. This programme focuses on understanding what matters to the patient and gave clinicians time and opportunity to reflect on how decisions are made within the hospital setting”. By experimenting with storytelling and the sharing of patient stories the pilot will offer therapy staff a new tool to drive forward quality improvement in the NHS.

Watch this space to see how the pilot goes!