For many years, storytelling has been applied as a tool for learning and change-making. In recent years, lived experience storytelling in particular, has thrived as a tool for social justice, via the creation of spaces for discussion and exchange. Over the last 6 months, we have been experimenting with combining our own lived experience storytelling method – Community Reporting – with future-thinking activities as part of EUARENAS.

Foresight – or future thinking – provides scope for people to think about the future and use this to model and respond to potential prospective circumstances. In an ever-changing world, it asks us to think about our future, what challenges are on the horizon and how we can address them to achieve shared outcomes. To explore the future of democracy in Europe, partners in Italy, Estonia and Poland have worked with citizens to share experience of democracy in the present day and use them to discuss what the future may hold. In these workshops, citizens used the three horizon framework to map various pathways for the future of democracy in their context.

In the Municipality of Reggio Emilia, they worked with 13 people who were active in their communities and involved in civil society activities. One of the ‘preferred’ visions for the future that this group stated, was that they wanted to increase the diversity of voices involved in democracy: “I only hope that these councils will not always be attended by the same people”. In Voru, Estonia they worked with young people to explore their ideas about democracy and hopes for the future. Similar to the citizens in Reggio Emilia, they wanted to enhance diversity as they felt that currently “the voice of a minority is often not heard”. Finally, in Gdansk, Poland they worked with a heterogeneous group of citizens. Reflecting on the workshop, the Polish team felt that the workshop’s methods supported citizens to speak up – “It is important to sincerely listen to people’s stories, and even sometimes when we lose the topic of discussion, let them talk – because for some people it is the first time that they have a voice.”

In July we will be launching a ‘Lived Experience Storytelling and Future-Thinking’ toolkit and later in the year, we will be sharing with you the learning from these activities as part of an Insight Briefing.

Last week PVM joined UNICORN Project partners in Berlin to take part in a 4 four day training event.

The training, delivered by Vensenya, focused on four key aspects of communications and marketing – Audience Design, Storytelling, Distribution and Audience Building – and how these can be applied to NGO sector organisations.

The training was an opportunity to see how marketing methods and communications strategies traditionally used in the business sector can be applied to smaller, grassroot level, non-profit organisations. Partners were able to reflect on their organisation’s purpose, audience and aims, then think about how these strategically link to approaches to marketing and communications. The training was a success and provided lots of inspiration as to how PVM could improve in terms of the content we share and how we engage with our audience.

The next training will take part in Liverpool in July – stay tuned for more updates!

10:30am – 5:00pm, Thursday 7^th July 2022, The Lowry, The Quays, Salford, M50 3AZ

BOOK HERE

Stories are powerful vehicles that build bridges between people and support common understanding. In recent years digital storytelling has helped to connect communities and has thrived as a tool for social transformation and justice.

Community Reporting falls into this arena. We see it as a tool to address inequalities in society and help to shift power from ‘systems’ to people. However, we all know changes in power dynamics don’t come easily. For the fourth annual Community Reporter Conference, we want to open-up a conversation about power and lived experience. PLACES ARE LIMITED, SO BOOK NOW!

The agenda for the day is:

10:30am / Registration and refreshments

Get signed-in, grab a cuppa and a snack, chat!

11:00am / Welcome and Stories from the Community Reporter network

A warm welcome from People’s Voice Media including some extracts from recent Community Reporter stories and an overview of the conference.

11:15am / On Your Soapbox – What’s your perspective on the topic of lived experience and power?

Invited speakers will get ‘on their soapbox’ and have 3 minutes to share their thoughts about this year’s conference topic – lived experience and power. You’ll then have some space to chat in small groups about any issues connected to this topic. We hope it will be a great way for people to share their perspectives, get some stuff off their chest and have their perceptions challenged. 

12:00pm / Closed Cultures – How do we prevent and tackle them?

Working with Ideas Alliance and commissioned by the CQC, Community Reporters spoke to people about their experiences of closed cultures in health and social care environments. The people involved in this piece of work will share the key findings with you and ask you to think about how you can be a part of tackling closed cultures.

12:45pm / Lunch 

1:30pm / Democracy – are we talking the same language?

Researchers from the EUARENAS project Matilda and LangWork projects and UEF, will create a space for a conversation about the future of democracy. The session will focus on language barriers and communication challenges in people’s involvement with democracy.  

2:30pm / Break and refreshments

2:45pm / Co-production – How do we create the ‘right’ conditions for co-production? 

We’ve been working with Co-production Collective and Curators of Change to gather stories about people’s experiences of co-production in services, research and policy. Based on the insights in these stories, we will host a workshop about what ‘conditions’ need to be in place for co-production to flourish and how we go about establishing them. 

4:00pm / Our 15(ish) minutes of fame 

Members of the Community Reporter network will be sharing some highlights of the work they’ve been doing over the last 12 months. We will also launch our social impact report (2021 – 2022) and ask you for your input into our future plans. 

4:30pm / Drinks, chinwags and goodbyes 

We’ll be providing some post-conference drinks and a social space for people to chat, swap contact details and unwind!

Parts of this agenda will be hybrid and we will be launching the booking link for online attendance in May.

Since May 2021, People’s Voice Media have been partnering with Ideas Alliance on Not Another Co-Production Project.

The aim of the project is to move co-production from a buzz word into an embedded practice within grassroots organisations across England. We want to facilitate a knowledge exchange which ensures local people become active citizens, are involved in decision making and can shift power in their community, creating equitable partnerships between residents, services and local authorities. We want a future where policy, research and service design are informed by the lived experiences of local people and where collaboration is the norm not the exception.

As part of a 3-year project, Ideas Alliance will work with People’s Voice Media to deliver a co-production development project. This project will benefit local people, professionals and organisations across England, through engaging them in co-production workshops, Community Reporting, annual community learning festivals and a peer support network that connects people and creates a partnership of practice.

The first year of the project has been based in Greater Manchester and has seen a series of workshop delivered on co-production, community reporting and storytelling.

Most recently planning has begun for the first of three community learning festivals, which is set to take place in Manchester this summer. Last week members of Ideas Alliance came together with project contributors from across Greater Manchester at the Science and Industry Museum to discuss what should be included in the festival. The day will be a chance for people to learn more about co-production, challenge their understanding of what it is and most importantly celebrate how it can be used as a tool to create positive change within a range of different settings.

Stay tuned for future updates on the project and keep a look out on socials for invites to the festival!

Last month the team at PVM were joined by members of the Community Reporters Network for our first catch-up of the year!

We run two 1hr online meet-ups a year, which provide space for members to keep up-to-date with what is happening within the Community Reporters Network. This time around we provided an update on actions from the last meeting – the main focus being the development of a community reporting project themed around anti-racism. At this moment in time the funding application is underway, the outcome of which we will know by June, if all goes to plan delivery will commence in summer 2022!

We also discussed PVM’s commitment to anti-racism and our actions towards becoming actively anti-racist. You can find out more about this in our blog post here.

We then provided some information on the upcoming Community Reporters Conference 2022, which is set to take place on Thursday the 7th of July 2022. This year we return to in-person delivery at the Lowry in Salford Quays and will be focusing on the theme of power. There are three financially supported places available up to the value of £150.00 to cover the cost of taking part in the day. You can find out more through the eventbrite page, which will be going live this Friday, where you’ll be able to sign up for your free ticket, so keep an eye out on socials for the link!

It was great to catch up with familiar faces and introduce some new ones to the Community Reporters Network – we look forward to welcoming you to the conference in July and the 2nd ICR catch-up later in the year.