We’ve been working with the Bronte Youth and Community Centre in Liverpool delivering a series of Community Reporting workshops with young people in the local community!

The Bronte Youth and Community Centre is a Youth Organisation based in Central Liverpool. They offer a youth club 3 nights a week to children and young adults from the ages of 5 to 18 and young people with additional needs and disabilities up to the age of 25.

They are currently in the process of renovating their community hub and wanted to ensure the young people played a part in shaping their new space – which is where Community Reporting comes in.

Over the course of 6 sessions young people creatively explored their ideas for the future of their club, brainstorming ideas in the form of collages, clay sculptures, modeled buildings and recorded interviews, developing basic skills in Community Reporting along the way. The group also worked together interviewing peers, community members, staff and partners helping to paint a picture of their hopes for the future of the centre.

From Karaoke to Fashion Shows, Football to Gardening Projects – the young people came up with a whole host of ideas for the new space and their enthusiasm and excitement for the future of their community was inspirational to say the least.

These ideas will form a integral part of the plans for the future of the Bronte, informing the kinds of sessions and activities that are on offer to young people and local community, how the different areas of the building can be used and what role the young people themselves will play in the newly refurbished space.

We’ll be writing up an insight report over the next couple of months, which will summarise the findings from the recorded stories and content created by the young people. This will then be used to inform future decision making processes and shape what kind of space the centre becomes.

The ultimate aim of the project is to develop capacity within the Bronte Youth & Community Centre to use Community Reporting as a tool for engagement, insight, and evaluation and for enabling community voices – particularly those belonging to young people – to interact with the Bronte.

In 2025 we’ll also be delivering some train the trainer workshops with staff and community members to equip them with the skills to carry on the Community Reporting process for generations to come – so watch this space for more stories and updates!

If you’d like to find out more about The Bronte, Check out their website for more information and updates on the renovation work, or head over to their Facebook to see what sessions they have running for young people in and around Liverpool City Centre.

We’re really excited to announce that we’ll be running a series of four online open access Community Reporter skills session throughout 2025, thanks to funding from Esmee Fairbairn!

Whether you’re completely new to Community Reporting and want to get a feel for what it’s all about, or you’ve previously took part in training but it’s been a while since you put your skills into practice – these sessions are for you!

The four workshops will be delivered through Zoom in January, April, July and October and are a chance for people to refine their skills in Community Reporting. The topics covered include dialogue interviews, the community reporter website, story reviewing practices and video recording techniques.

Read on below or visit out eventbrite page to find out more about the content of the sessions and sign up for a space.

Dialogue Interviews: Join us online to enhance your interviewing skills and learn how to engage in meaningful conversations with community members. This session will provide you with valuable insights and practical tips on conducting effective interviews that capture diverse perspectives.

The Community Reporter Website: Join us online to discover how to upload stories to the Community Reporter website and search our database of existing stories. This session will provide you with valuable insights and practical tips on using the website and it’s many features.

Story Reviewing Practices: Join us online to discover how to review stories using a range of techniques and resources. This session will provide you with the practical skills needed to pull out the key themes and learning points from a set of stories, helping you to summarise the findings.

Video Recording Techniques: Join us online to discover different techniques for recording stories in video format. This session will provide you with the practical skills needed to record a video story both online and in person.

These 1-hour workshops have been designed as ‘top-up’ or ‘recap’ training for existing Community Reporters and Trainers or as introductory sessions for people who are interested in accessing Community Reporting training. Please bare this in mind when reserving a space as tickets are limited to ensure an engaging and accessible experience for everyone in attendance.

If you have any questions or would like more information please reach out to Georgia who will be facilitating the sessions: georgia@peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk

In May this year we held our 6th Annual Community Reporter Conference in the form of a ‘hackathon’. A hackathon is a space were people can come together to explore a problem and co-create solutions. The event brought together a group of 56 experts to explore the question “How can we make lived experience storytelling practice more accessible and inclusive?”. Experts included people with lived experience of some of the issues being discussed, researchers, creative practitioners and storytellers, public engagement professionals, evaluators and workers in the third and public sectors.

The event focused specifically on how storytelling could be:

• accessible for people who do not use spoken word
• inclusive for people who are neurodivergent
• actively anti-racist

Through a series of creative and participatory activities, the attendees worked together to explore the barriers and identify solutions. The event was funded and support by NCRM.

From the event we’ve produced a learning report, which you can download here and this video report that documents the day. You can also listen to an audio executive summary of the learning report here.

People’s Voice Media and Think Local Act Personal (TLAP), in partnership with Halton Borough Council, launched a Community Reporting project to gather stories from people with learning disabilities and Autistic individuals in Halton. The project aimed to explore how these individuals experience local services, highlighting what works, what doesn’t, and what can be improved. By listening to their lived experiences, the initiative sought to understand the elements that contribute to a meaningful life and identify ways local services can better support people. 

Central to the project was a commitment to accessibility and inclusivity. People’s Voice Media was supported by members of the National Co-production Advisory Group (NCAG) to facilitated storytelling sessions focusing on people’s experience of services. Over several months, we gathered stories from a range of people and ran some online workshops to explore the key insights in the stories with the storytellers. At these sessions we developed some recommendations based on the lived experiences gathered and explore how this learning could support the implementation of the One Halton Co-Production Charter. 

The results of this work can be viewed in this short video:

Late last year the Adult Social Care All Party Political Group came together to take part in some Community Reporter Training.

Over the course of the online sessions, people developed a core understanding of Community Reporting techniques including the basics of snapshot stories and dialogue interviews, responsible storytelling considerations and usage of the Community Reporter website.

The focus of the training was to support the group to gather stories of peoples lived experiences of adult social care. These stories will shine a light on voices from within the community of people receiving support from adult social care, that have otherwise gone unheard, in an attempt to create positive change within the sector. Through sharing personal experiences of what works and what doesn’t with people in positions of power, we hope to influence a progressive shift in service provision.

Since then PVM have delivered follow up workshops to train more Community Reporters and help the group with action planning for the future.

Thank you to everyone who came along to the sessions and shared their experiences, we’re excited to see you continue to use Community Reporting in the future and look forward to hearing even more stories emerge from this work.

If you’d like to share a story on your experience of adult social care – get in touch with Georgia from the PVM team georgia@peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk