Towards the end of February, PVM headed over to Hungary to take part in the final in-person meeting of the project!

Partners from across Europe gathered to share important information and updates on the final stages of the project. They also took part in a Pan-European Multiplier Event alongside young people representing the social actions that have resulted from CONTINUE.

As part of the event, partners and young people took part in a Community Reporting taster workshop. During this activity, people shared their lived experiences of the pandemic, exploring their own observation of COVID-19s impact on young people in their communities.

You can view some of these stories over on the Community Reporter website here.

The event was a great way to bring the in-person aspects of the project to close, celebrating the contributions the young people have made along the way.

Keep your eyes peeled for the final update on the completion of the CONTINUE Project!

Just before Christmas I was lucky enough to go to Valladolid in Spain to get together with our European partners on the Narratives of Impact project. Valladolid is charming old University city, and it houses one of the partners and the host for this transnational partnership meeting, Fundación INTRAS.

Fundación INTRAS is a non-profit organisation dedicated to research and intervention in mental health in the region of Castilla y León, Spain. 

The meeting was held so we could review the video guides that we have produced for the final toolkit and decide on final decisions for the final edit. But we also had the opportunity to –

• meet with stakeholders who are linking into the project 
• explore more creative storytelling activities 
• look at Quality Indicators that help us have a framework to measure success against.

One stakeholder is Abi Horsfield from Collective Encounters, UK. She brought some creative energy along and shared some different creative activities and methods that can be used to help measure impact. Encouraging ‘active listening’ with an activity called Concentric Circles this helped us to really consider the questions that we ask and how well we listen.

Elisha Chiesa from the Consorzio Comunità Brianza in Italy, showed us an interesting presentation about the important EPPICA project that she is working on. And we also heard from Maria from Zamora Rehabilitation Centre outside Valladolid, who showed us a film about how they have been using lived experience storytelling to support their work.

The energy and interest from these stakeholders have emboldened the project and demonstrated how relevant the toolkit and video guides that we are producing are. It’s great to have feedback and interest from other proactive organisations that are doing such important work.

As well as having the contributions from stakeholders we also explored the best way to use Quality Indicators and how to embed this when measuring impact using storytelling. We looked at what specific Quality Indicators each partner organisation would use to measure success against helping each organisation to build a Quality Indicator framework in which to measure success against.

Over the 2 days in the daytime, we were busy being developing creative and robust ways to measure impact, in the evening we were entertained by the fantastic Christmas lights that were throughout the streets of the city and were all lit by solar led lighting. This added a touch of festive magic to the whole experience without adding to climate emergency. What a delight.

Kath Peters – PVM Narratives of Impact project manager

@COSV, @CRN, @digitalstorytelling, @erasmusplus, @INTRAS, @livedexperience, @measuringimpact, @narrativesofimpact, @SNDE, #communityreporting, #livedexperiencestorytelling, @collectiveencounters

Over the past 6 months PVM have been working with Creative Minds and the Mental Health Museum, on a project looking into people’s lived experience with mental health.

A multitude of sessions have taken place across West Yorkshire, specifically in Wakefield and Huddersfield, sharing Community Reporting techniques and providing the opportunity for people to share their stories.

The project initially set out to speak to people who had a connection to the former Stanley Royd Hospital and Fieldhead Hospital, something which we were able to achieve. Head over to the Community Reporter Website to take a look through and listen to some of the stories that have been recorded as part of the project so far – including accounts from former staff members of the hospitals! What also emerged from the project was a wider collection of stories exploring people’s personal mental health journeys.

We’d like to give a huge thank you to the MHM, Creative Minds and of course everyone who took the time to share their stories and take part in the Community Reporter training sessions.

Whilst PVM’s involvement in the project will shortly be coming to an end – if you want to find out more or contribute your story get in touch with the MHM.

Last month EUARENAS partners came together for two days of training led by PVM at FACT, Liverpool.

Over the two days representatives from PVM, CRN, UEF, SWPS and the pilot cities of Gdask, Voru and Reggio Emilia engaged in a series of creative workshops, providing insight into how future scenarios can be explored using interactive play style activities. Each activity was geared towards getting groups to work collectively to imagine a future in which deliberative democracy has been achieved.

Serious Play

Groups used ‘Lego’ style building blocks to construct their vision of the future.

Collaging / Annotation

Groups worked together to create an annotated collage containing imagery and text cut out of newspapers, magazines and other printed media.

Photo Voice

Groups were provided with an instant camera, then instructed to take to the streets and capture images which represented participatory democracy. They returned to the workshop after gathering their pictures and created a visual mind map of what their future scenario could look like.

The activities were really fun to take part in and each group was able to sample each of the methods, with new ideas emerging at every stage. Following this section of the training partners reflected on each of the activities discussing the positive, negatives and potential adaptations – in preparation for the delivery of a series of future thinking workshops which are set to take place over the coming months.

On the second day partners worked within their country teams to produce an action plan for the delivery of the future thinking workshops. These plans were then peer reviewed and will now be utilised to achieve the next steps of the project.

Check out the blog post over on the EUARENAS website to find out even more about what we got up to.

After a successful first year in Greater Manchester where we supported people, communities and organisations to develop their co-production practice, the Not Another Co-Production project is back. This year we will be working across the West Midlands with our colleagues at Ideas Alliance to embed co-production into how services and institutions work – bringing the voices of local people closer to decision-makers.

The programme for year 2 was launched in The Crescent Theatre, Birmingham earlier this month, with around 30 or so people joining us to find out more about what the project has to offer. The day saw the project’s team deliver a set of taster activities, including:

• Exploring feelings about positive and negative experiences of services
• What we’d do if we want to actively SABOTAGE co-production
• Listening to lived experience stories of co-production and exploring what we can learn from them

One of the attendees, Sophie, shared her visual notes on the day with us – have a look below.

Speaking about the day, she said: “It was great to be able to talk to people from all sorts of organisations, some similar to mine and some entirely different. The diversity of voices and opinions really gave the event a sense of energy, I felt a lot of potential in the room.”

We are looking forward to rolling with the rest of the programme which will include the delivery of Community Reporting training and some bespoke sessions on working with lived experience stories as part of co-production processes. More on those in the coming months!