From May – Oct 2024 we worked in partnership with MacMillan and NHS
Herefordshire and Worcestershire ICB training health workers and volunteers in how
to use Community Reporting to capture the patient voice. With the aim to help
improve access to cancer care services for local people, specifically the South Asian
and Roma/Traveller communities.

Oct 31st was the last day of the training at the Co Lab in Kidderminster hospital. We
ran a curation session with the stories, looking across them to find learning and
insight. Key points that were identified was a need to improve communication about
cancer care services by using different languages and different methods of
communication, as well as busting myths about cancer.
This was the last day of the Community Reporting training but not the end of the
project. MacMillan and NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire ICB will take the
learning and implement specific changes to how they promote their services. They
are looking to set up community champion advocates schemes, as well as continue
to use Community Reporting to gather stories from the local people.
One participant said

“I’ve learned to zip this (pointing to her mouth) and open these.” (pointing to her ears).

This is one of many projects that are powering us forward to achieving one of our
strategic goals ‘to embed Community Reporting and lived experience into service
development and improvement’.
We have done this by –
 supporting MacMillan and NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire ICB to
develop the capacity to gather lived experience stories to help improve
access to cancer care services.
 giving local people/patients a new function/approach in which their voices and
expertise can be heard and utilised for positive change by MacMillan and
NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire ICB.
 enhancing the use of lived experience in the work of MacMillan staff and
volunteers and NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire ICB workers.

The social change that we have achieved from this project is a change in approach
from the health care professionals involved. By prioritising listening to the lived
experiences around cancer and accessing cancer care services, in these specific communities, and having the time to learn the CR methodology with the time set aside to collect stories. They have
recognised what a useful tool it is and are keen to utilise it further. The project is
continuing, and MacMillan and the NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire ICB have
plans for future impact. This Community Reporting project has started it off in the
right direction by putting the patient voice right at the centre of all future activity.

Kath Peters – Project manager

What a warm welcome the team had in the wonderful Black Country. Last summer People’s Voice Media partnered with the Black Country Integrated Care System (ICS), the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) network and Wolverhampton Voluntary and Community Action (WCVA) to start the Black Country Integrated Care System REND Project. The project took 18 months to complete and trained 51 reporters and collected 38 stories. 

The aims of the project were to 

1.Build capacity: Enhancing the capacity of the VCSE Engagement and Partnership Team and Involvement Team to support a three-year programme focused on research within the VCSE. 

2.Gather qualitative insights: Increasing qualitative insight informal research to capture the diverse views within the community, specifically regarding access to healthcare services in the Black Country. 

3. Build community-led intelligence: Supporting the creation of a library/databank of community-led intelligence that can inform strategic decision-making. 

A key aspect of the project was to implement the Community Reporting method as a tool in targeted areas to undertake research into health inequalities. The project looked specifically at how people access health services (GP’s, hospitals, mental health services) across the Black Country. 

“Every time you go into a GP surgery you are seeing someone different. Which is never great for anyone, but for an autistic individual to actually open-up and talk about

what’s wrong, you know, it’s clear that you have to have a relationship with your doctor, that’s the whole point of the GP, and it’s not like its rocket science is it?”

Black Country Resident

This project started off in the summer of 2023 when we ran some taster sessions as part of a ‘Proof of Concept’ programme to test the water in Wolverhampton, Sandwell and Dudley. At the beginning of the year, we went to deliver 2 Community Reporter training programmes in Dudley and Wolverhampton. I had never been to Wolverhampton before, and I was very impressed with it. Especially the venue in which we delivered the second programme. The Bob Jones Community Hub is a great community space and was the perfect place to run the training. We trained people from vital voluntary organisations, such as BME United, Aspire4U, Dudley Voices for Choices and Smethwick Foodbank. 

The stories were shared at a ‘Conversation of Change Event’ in Wolverhampton in July 2024. This event brought together members of the BCICS, wider stakeholders and local people to explore the findings from the stories and identify practical ways in which the learning can be put into practice and shared within the system. The results of which have helped to inform these key recommendations. 

Improve communication and training: There is a need for better, specialised training and development for healthcare professionals on communication skills and cultural competences to ensure all residents are heard and understood within health settings. One person said that having English as a second language with no translators on hand and needing to fill out forms written in English created barriers for his family and community members. Moreover, opening conversations with residents with the question – What reasonable adjustment will help you access relevant support? – would support the creation and implementation of more inclusive and equitable health services. 

Address digital Inequities: Healthcare providers need to focus on bridging the digital divide by providing support for those with limited internet access or digital literacy. This could include simplifying the appointment booking process or involve offering alternative ways to book appointments. In-person assistance in navigating online systems should also be considered. 

Champion a person-centred approach: Encourage continuous community engagement through initiatives like Community Reporting that can help capture ongoing feedback from diverse populations. This will ensure that healthcare services evolve based on the community’s needs. This type of work should not be ‘ad-hoc’ or ‘one-off’ projects, but instead mainstreamed and embedded into the system as a continuous approach in the Black Country,  The people’s stories have informed this insight report, and the stories will be added to an insight library that the Black Country ICS are developing. It was such a privilege for us to listen to the stories that people took the time to share with us and others.  

Kath Peters – Project manager

Funded by a National Lottery award from the National Lottery Community Fund.
 

This Black History Month, we are thrilled to announce that we have been awarded funding from the National Lottery Community Fund’ to run a 18 month Global Majority Community Reporter project. The project is set to start in November 2024 and builds on our existing work in this area. 

This funding will allow us to continue strengthening our Community Reporting network, with a dedicated focus on training and supporting Global Majority Community Reporters. Through our work in Community Reporting, we strive to broaden the narrative, making sure that storytelling is a powerful movement for change and becomes increasingly inclusive of underrepresented voices.

Changing the World, One Story at a Time

At People’s Voice Media, we believe that stories are a powerful tool for creating change and we are committed to amplifying the voices of those from Global Majority backgrounds in our work. They are not only reflections of our experiences but also agents of transformation. However, we recognise that this journey will look and feel different for Global Majority individuals, and therefore this project will recruit, train and mentor people from Global Majority communities to use lived experience storytelling to support racial justice.

The aims of the project are to build the capacity of people from Global Majority communities to be leaders in co-production and social change fields. Through a mixture of training, peer support and mini-social action projects we want to create a space where the experiences of global majority individuals are not only amplified but also central to the change we aim to achieve. Also establishing an England-wide Global Majority peer support network for people from Global Majority communities working in co-production and social change arenas. We know this work is essential to addressing the deep societal inequalities that persist, and storytelling can be the key to unlocking new possibilities for justice and equity.

A New Chapter for Inclusive Storytelling

Through this initiative, we want to further embed anti-racist practice across our Community Reporter network and create spaces for people with experiences of racism to talk about this safely. We hope that this will contribute to transformational change in our own work and the boarder co-production sphere, creating racial justice in these settings. 

The work will be led by Isaac Samuels – the Community Reporting lead at People’s Voice Media. It builds on their current work with the Co-Production Collective that has been researching the lived experiences of racialised communities in co-production and research and working with organisations in this arena to turn the insights from people’s stories into applied action. 

In the coming weeks, we will be sharing more about this exciting project, including how people can get involved. Stay tuned for more updates as we continue this vital work!

Dragons Voice CIC started working with People’s Voice Media (PVM) on the HOME? Project in May 2022 after discussions with Hayley (CEO of PVM). We feel privileged to be part of this project as we have worked with another organisation on a similar type of project. Initially we intended to gather stories from the BNO new arrivals from Hong Kong but this was not welcomed by that community as many feared for their safety and did not want to participate in a project that will showcase how they are living now since arriving in the UK.

We discussed this with PVM and Kath kindly agreed that we could look at alternative sectors of the Chinese community. In the end we recruited mainly from Mandarin speaker from mainland China who arrived in the UK within the last 10 years.

We found members of the PVM team to be very understanding and willing to adapt to our changing circumstances. As the director authorising the partnership agreement, I felt that PVM as an organisation stands true to its values. I have met Hayley a few times when I attended some training (early 2021) and at a conference way back in 2017. What came across was the philosophy of non-exploitation and letting people take control of their own stories.

How have the participants benefited from the project?

The participants who attended the Community Reporter training gained skills in doing short snapshot and dialogue interviews. They used a tablet to record the videos at the training sessions. The interviews were spoken in Chinese languages so they did not have to struggle with speaking in a second language. Some gathered stories after the training and uploaded them onto the Community Reporter website.

Those who attended the archive research training completed summaries of stories they found in the Manchester Evening newspaper. The focus was on finding stories on positive contributions from migrants. The skills they developed were firstly to locate the articles online and then sifting through the articles to find relevant stories. To conclude, they had to summarise and transfer core information onto the spreadsheet.

The training provided opportunities for strangers to meet up with other peers and transfer some of the learning into practice. Those who struggled with the archive research due to language were supported by those who had better English abilities. The project provided opportunities for participants to talk about and reflect on their migration journeys. Dragons Voice created 2 part-time posts for its volunteers, one to co-ordinate and the other to support in recruitment and organising activities.

Has Dragon’s Voice learned anything from taking part or from the stories?

There are many similarities in the stories, namely people migrate for better opportunities in life. There are always challenges to overcome in the initial transition, be it the weather in UK, availability of food they normally eat, language barriers or employment opportunities. The approach to interviewing in Community Reporting is very different to interviewing to mine for information, which is how we normally work when interviewing guests on our radio shows. In future we should be less focused on getting information we want and instead adopt a facilitative approach for the individuals we interview to tell their stories.

As a director I have learned to devise employment contracts for freelance workers but is not quite sure what to do when they pull out mid-way. I have had to step in and luckily as I had overall management of the project, I was able to pick it up without much trouble.

The Knowledge Exchange event puts the stories we gathered into a wider context and the roadmaps produced offers a sense of direction for future actions. It was good to meet up with other partners at the partners meetings, who worked across broader areas and are much more politically aware. Their comments provided different perspectives and food for thought.

At the conference in Liverpool, I found out about the other great projects that PVM is involved in and it opened my eyes to the broader work of community reporting.

I am painfully aware that Manchester has diverse migrant communities and it was with regret that we did not include these other groups in our project. We did offer the archive training to ALLFM presenter but there was no uptake advertising it on the volunteers steering group meetings and at ALLFM studio. We need to consider in future how to engage with other migrant groups within Manchester.

It is with much appreciation that Dragons Voice CIC was able to be a partner on this project. We hope to be able to work with People’s Voice Media again in the future.

Denise Yuen Megson

Director

Dragons Voice CIC

The HOME? heritage project funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund has been focusing on the collection, curation, and dissemination of lived experiences of migrants (including refugees, people seeking asylum and other migrants) living in Northern England over the last 10 years. 

In August we pulled together the feedback gathered from the 5 Knowledge Exchanges in the 5 areas during Refugee Week in June and the Pan Northern Knowledge exchange in July in Liverpool. We are now collating the feedback to create roadmaps/action plans for each area including an overarching one for the North of England.

A total of 117 people attended the Knowledge Exchanges and people in each of the areas had the opportunity to hear people’s oral histories about their lived experiences of coming to live in the UK. 

The Knowledge Exchanges gave the wider community the opportunity to learn about this heritage, provoke discussion around the issues and people came up with ideas to input into a local road map/action plan that will help to – 

• disseminate the learning.
• create actions that help people to develop compassion and understanding. 

People said the event had inspired them to “get more involved”, “pay more attention”, “speak out more” and given them greater awareness. One expressed an intention to start volunteering. People demonstrated a shift in attitudes. One response described how they would “talk to people more positively about new migrants”, while another stated they would “be more aware of the importance to make people more aware of the similarities we share with asylum seekers, why they come and should not be a competition for resources, housing or jobs”. Another answer described how the event had left them feeling “more excited to be positive and keep working hard to adapt to life as a newcomer in the UK”. These responses show a positive personal impact on some of the attendees of the events.

The main key ideas that came up from the Knowledge Exchanges are:

• Campaigning for better rights for Migrants, Refugees, and asylum seekers – this includes the right to work, better housing, better financial help, better health support and more legal support.
• Connecting support services together more effectively.
• The need for specific trauma informed mental health support.
• Creating more activities for people to combat social isolation, especially for young men.
• Better targeted health care support for women.
• More ESOL support.

The feedback from the Knowledge Exchanges and the roadmaps will inform project resources that are being produced now, in phase 4 of the project, which is focusing on Widening Impact by producing –

• an educational toolkit – this will be a resource pack for organisations and individuals to use.
• a website – the stories, newspaper database and toolkit will be available from the website.
• a local newspaper story archive/database
• an animation – which will also be part of the toolkit and screened across the 5 areas in early 2024.

During each Knowledge Exchange there was also the opportunity for people to sign up to get involved with the project and many people have signed up. In response to this we are currently planning more Community Reporting training, Archive Research Training and Train the Trainers training that will happen from Oct through to March.