Recently, PVM collaborated with Silent Voices, a partnership between NHS Salford CCG and Healthwatch Salford aiming to reduce inequalities for those with hearing loss. With 20% of people in Salford registered as deaf (and with many more who are hard of hearing), the projected aimed to provide “top tips” to healthcare professionals in order to make services more accessible.

As part of the project, Salford’s Deaf Digital Champions ( BSL users with an interest in digital comms) have taken feedback from the local deaf community to find that digital communication is seen as a positive way to receive messages and information. From this was the idea to create a “top tips” film.

PVM’s role was to facilitate a workshop, run by our very own Rachel Brewster-Wright, to shoot and edit this film using Community Reporting methods. The finished film sees Digital Deaf Champions presenting five top tips, derived from lived experience, to give healthcare professionals insight into what it is like for deaf people to access healthcare, and how this can be improved. You can watch the finished film below or on the Healthwatch Salford YouTube Channel.

Delana Lawson, Chief Officer of Healthwatch Salford, said: “I am delighted that we have been able to work with partners to maintain a dialogue between health care professionals and the deaf community in Salford. 

“Helping groups to promote their own health and care experiences and issues is what Local Healthwatch is all about!”

As part of the CoSIE project, PVM’s Hayley has written a blog over on the project website called It Ain’t What You Do, It’s the Way that You Do It – That’s What Gets Results, looking at why practice-based knowledge needs to be included in the core understanding of co-creation. You can read an except below, or follow the link at the end of this blog to read the feature in its entirety.

“Practice makes perfect” is a well-known saying, but why is practice – as a professional discipline – disregarded in certain spheres? Why do other realms garner more authority than the knowledge engendered from ‘doing’? This blog presents the case for the inclusion of practice-based knowledge within the core understanding of co-creation, and seeks to open up a discussion about how practice holds the key to transferring learning from co-creation processes and replicating them in new spaces.

Read more over on the CoSIE site now.

For quite some time now we’ve been part of the Voicitys project, which has now come to an end. As a pilot project, it aimed to “strengthen social dialogue between residents, stakeholders and policy makers in diverse urban neighbourhoods.”

The project studies four diverse European neighbourhoods: Berlin, Budapest, Manchester and Sassari through three main activities: 1) collecting and curating stories of citizens through Community Reporting (80 citizen stories) 2) collecting and analysing stakeholders’ views through semi-structured interviews (45 interviews); 3) comparing the results of the two methods and elaborating a series of policy recommendations through participative workshops and consensus meetings.

Voicitys.eu

As Voicitys was a pilot project, it was testing a complex methodology and allowed the team of transnational partners to identify problems and make recommendations. Part of the project was to put all of these findings into a handbook so that other diverse neighbourhoods can benefit from the methodology. This can be downloaded here and details the methodology and findings in full.

One of PVM’s current project involvements in Eurospectives 2.0. The project aims to create a European curriculum for digital storytelling, empowering learners and teachers.

Earlier in June, we attended the third project TNP meeting, hosted by project partners, the CFR centre. Over two days, we made exciting progress on the project and even found time to enjoy a well-earned dinner. You can read all about it here on the Eurospectives blog.