Monday 8th March 2021 / 1pm to 2pm / Register here

Are you a Community Reporter, Social Licensee or a Partner? Join us for an online catch-up with other members of our UK and European network. We run 2 online catch-ups per year and they are a great way for members to keep up-to-date with what is happening in the Institute of Community Reporters (the ICR), learn new stuff and share expertise, find out about opportunities to get involved with, meet other members, network and much more.

It’s only an hour, so grab a brew and a biscuit, log on and find out what exciting stuff is happening across our network! 

1:00pm / Welcome and the ICR Update – Sarah Henderson (People’s Voice Media)

Find out the latest news from the ICR including previous and upcoming events and training opportunities for the network. 

1:15pm / Experiences of the pandemic within the BAME communities – South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (North Kirklees, Yorkshire)

Hear how Community Reporting was used by SWYP NHS Foundation Trust to better understand the experiences of BAME communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

1:30pm / The 3rd ICR Annual Conference – Sarah Henderson (People’s Voice Media)

We’ll be giving you all the details about our second conference in June 2021 and how you can be a part of it!

1:45pm / News, Opportunities and Questions from the ICR network 

Your chance to share what Community Reporting activities you’ve been up to, hear about any opportunities in the network and ask questions to the network or for help from other members.

2:00pm / End of Catch-Up and back to work! 😉 

*Save the date for the next ICR Online Catch-Up – Tuesday 21st September 2021, 2pm – 3pm (UK time)*

This week is Alcohol Awareness Week and this year’s theme is Alcohol & Mental Health. At People’s Voice Media, we’re taking the opportunity to reflect on work we’ve carried out with people with alcohol addictions, and the learnings we’ve made to help services better support those on the road to recovery.

In the course of our work, we’ve gathered stories from people recovering from alcohol addiction, with the discussion particularly focused on the process of recovery: what recovery means to them, the support available, what works, and what doesn’t.

Throughout our chats, the idea that kept coming up was that recovery was akin to going on a journey, to being reborn. Recovery isn’t a quick fix, or a cure, but rather a hopeful journey that takes the person experiencing it to a new way of living.

We also uncovered a variety of learnings about why some recovery services work better than others, and what people living with addictions would like to see from the services supporting them.

• Recovery is not a box-ticking exercise and what works for one person won’t necessarily work for another. It’s a non-linear journey so a one-size-fits-all approach is not going to work.

You know, many years ago, if you couldn’t attend an appointment then you’d be sent a letter, you know, you’ve missed your appointment, you’ve missed your appointment, we’re closing your file. But now, you know, we’re evolving where we can we will come and see you and work around the client.” He goes on to say that this change in delivery is brilliant.

Person in recovery

• While some people with addictions will have shared experiences, this does not mean they have the same experiences. So, while some aspects of recovery, such as detox and rehab, are standard, a person-centred approach needs to be taken in order for each individual’s circumstances to be taken into account.
• Recovery does not happen in isolation. Each person has their own recovery community that can include Recovery Workers, care workers, social workers, medical professionals, family and friends. The more people supporting the service user, the more tailored their recovery journey can be. And the less isolated the person in recovery is, the more their recovery is likely to succeed.

I don’t know where I’d be if it wasn’t for the support networks. I don’t believe I’d be here now at all, and I’m very, very grateful.

Person in recovery

• If more people are involved in an individual’s recovery, then less pressure is on the Recovery Worker since they are not the only source of support for that person and this, in turn, means that they are able to help service users more effectively and take care of their own wellbeing.

Ultimately, the biggest learning to come out of the stories we gathered is that people should be treated as more than just their addiction in order to support their recovery from it.

For more information on how you can get involved in Alcohol Awareness Week, visit Alcohol Change UK.

Digital Collaborations was the final event of Doing It With Others: Why Proper Collaboration Really Matters, the ICR’s second annual conference and, with circumstances being what they are, it couldn’t have been more apt.

Held as an online knowledge exchange, the event was a chance to talk about one of the European projects on which PVM is a partner: Co-Engage, although naturally the talk also turned to the necessity of digital collaboration as we live through the age of COVID-19.

The panel of speakers included Martin Barthel (CRN), Belén Fernandez (l’Échappée des Copropriétés), and PVM’s own Hayley Trowbridge. Martin gave a great overview of the Co-Engage, a project bringing together a range of best practices for engaging citizens across Europe, which the participants were very excited about. Next, Belén posed questions on her own experience of taking her work online – an environment to which it’s not normally suited – during the global pandemic. The participants found this very engaging and there was much discussion on whether we’re evolving online consciously, or whether we are being pushed by circumstance into something less than ideal. Finally, Hayley spoke on taking storytelling online, reflecting on what PVM has learned over the last few months and the tools we’ve been using.

After our panel spoke, we opened the virtual floor to a lively and interesting discussion on our own experiences of and musings on digital collaborations. It was exciting to see so many new collaborations forming, both in the main room and in the text chat, with participants networking with each other and forming new connections.

Digital Collaborations was a great way to end what had proved to be a very different annual conference. It was our most international event, with UK participants joined by those from Germany, France, Hungary and even Australia (this is the furthest flung participant we’ve ever had, as well as the latest anyone has ever stayed up for one of our events!). It brought up interesting questions and endless debate during a time when digital collaborations have become an absolute necessity.

Lockdown working has presented a fair few challenges for PVM. We’re a largely face-to-face organisation: delivering training, attending project meetings, performing dialogue interviews… It’s all done in person.

As a result, we’ve had to rethink a lot of things. Where we’ve been able to, things are being done remotely. Workshops, knowledge exchanges and meetings have been moved online and we’ve all become experts in a range of video conferencing software and online collaboration tools. Where online hasn’t been a possibility projects have been paused with their deadlines extended, to be picked up again once lockdown measures have eased.

This has triggered a huge rethink in our workflow priorities. Projects that, just weeks ago, were massive priorities with imminent milestones have now shuffled to the back of the queue while work that has been put off in favour of more pressing deadlines (you know how it can be…) has suddenly found itself in the foreground.

For Sarah, this meant spending May taking a deep dive into our curation reports for the CoSIE project to form one of our project deliverables. The deliverable itself isn’t due for a good few months yet, but getting these analyses drafted now means that later this year the team isn’t juggling writing several thousand words, editing stories into a film, and trying to catch up with projects that have been on-hold.

So what are the curation reports?

The curation reports form a key part of the Community Reporting methodology. It involves looking at the stories gathered, pulling out the key themes that span them, and writing them up into an analysis that summarises our findings.

For the CoSIE project, this means looking at the stories gathered in each of the pilot projects. For Sarah, this meant examining the stories from Houten and Nieuwegein (both in The Netherlands), and Hungary, resulting in around 11,000 words of analysis. The insights gleaned were sometimes surprising. For instance, the Hungarian pilot which is all about rediscovering home economics and self-sustainability in disadvantaged communities, demonstrated that many of the participants show that there is a large demand for homemade produce, so much so that some participants are looking at turning their home enterprises into small businesses. Some stories, meanwhile, demonstrated the strengths and weaknesses of co-creation – sometimes showing it can only work when everyone involved is wholeheartedly invested.

While lockdown has forced us to reassess our entire working practice, it has perhaps given us opportunity to take time over things we would have ordinarily put back, and given us the time and space to properly examine them without distractions.

That being said, we can’t wait to be back organising workshops and conferences, and delivering training again.

Greece is one of the few countries that effectively managed to shut down the spread of COVID-19 before it really had a chance to take hold, and they are seen as one of the success stories of the pandemic. However, out of their lockdown measures, an unforeseen issue is arising, surrounding the use of digital tools in education settings.

One of our Eurospectives partners, Stephanos Cherouvis of Elliogermaniki Agogi has written a fascinating blog over on the Eurospectives site to shed some light on the ongoing saga.