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!

On Wednesday PVM hosted a Knowledge Exchange Event at Gorse Hill studios in Stretford, Greater Manchester, as part of the CONTINUE Project.

Young people, youth workers, staff from Gorse Hill and other community organisations came together to discover the learnings from the project so far and develop policy recommendations to benefit the lives of young people.

“Living in an area that sees lots of tourists – what’s here for us?”

During the workshop, groups worked together to brainstorm ideas and create a vision for what they’d like to see in their community in the form of community maps. These ideas are going to feed into a policy briefing which will summarise the findings of the session and set out a clear list of recommendations to local decision makers.

Some key themes that emerged from the discussions include…

• Parks and public spaces lack facilities for older young people (aged 13+) – equipment should be installed to make these spaces more inviting to this age bracket e.g. a skate park, parkour course or outdoor gym equipment
• Litter is an issue in the local area – providing more bins would improve this problem
• Poorly lit streets & areas can be scary for young people – having more streetlights would help young people feel safer
• Local stadiums and venues attract tourists and visitors from outside of the community who don’t always respect the local area – what can be done to provide people with a space they feel is built for the local community

Outside of the project, Gorse Hill Studios have scheduled to meet with local MP Kate Green to discuss how they can continue to work on influencing policy change in their community. They have also been invited to take part in a project – PLACEHOLDERS – which is looking into how young people’s voices can be included in the co-design and creation of spaces in the area like Stretford Mall.

It looks as though the work that has been done so far will continue to develop into the future – stay tuned for further updates and the release of the policy briefing!

Earlier this month PVM hosted the CONCRIT TNP in Manchester, followed by a four day training in Liverpool.

On International Women’s Day PVM and other project partners visited the Liverpool Museum to take part in ‘Women In Action, an event hosted by Collective Encounters. As part of the event women presented stories of their lived experience in a hybrid performance engaging with the audience in the room and over Zoom. It was a perfect fit for the CONCRIT project and set the tone for the week of training, in which learning activities and tools were tested and developed.

The aim of the CONCRIT project is to create new educational tools to train, teach and empower communities that are deemed to be marginalised. Specifically, concentrating on critical thinking, the construction and de-construction of narratives and the development of digital skills through digital storytelling. The aim being to strengthen the self-confidence of the learners, empowering them to grow in self-confidence, find their own collective voice and to strengthen a sense for local action.

You can take a look at the case studies that have been studied as part of the project so far in the document below:

Stay tuned for future updates!

Earlier this month a 2-Day training programme took place in Manchester as part of the ‘Not Another Co-Production Project’. Covering the fundamentals of Community Reporting and exploring how this method can be used as a tool for co-production the event was delivered in person at the St. Thomas Centre in Ardwick.

This is a 3-year project funded by the National Lottery that will see People’s Voice Media and Ideas Alliance work together to move co-production from a buzz word into an embedded practice across different areas in England. We want a future where policy, research and service design are informed by local people and where collaboration is the heart of how things are done. This way of working is messy, fun, challenging, but can really make a difference to those who are willing to give the time and energy to it.

The training was a mixture of presentations, individual/small group/whole group activities and discussions, reflection tasks, practical recording activities and Q&A.

As part of the day, we shared our own experiences of co-pro and here’s some of what chatted about:

• Co-production can lead to new ways of thinking and new ways of doing thing – different people’s perspectives ask us to think differently
• In larger organisations and institutions it can be hard to do things in the way you’d like to do them if you don’t have the authority to make certain decisions – sometimes the people who are advocating and practicing co-production struggle to get their bosses to see its value and share or handover their decision-making powers 
• A big part of co-production, is reflecting and critiquing – who has control, who have the power, who is setting the agenda?