During the last couple of weeks in March, some of the PVM team took part in a training lab designed as part of Co-Engage, one of the Erasmus Plus projects we are a part of. The project aims to contribute to the development of co-creation skills, enabling citizens to become social innovators. Based on the exchange of experiences and learning through co-creation, the consortium’s method will bring in light know-how and competences, engaging citizens for innovation and creativity and, through this, creating bridges between diverse sectors and fields of activity.

Held online, the labs aimed to get us thinking about co-creation practices and how these could better engage citizens as social innovators. Hosted by German partners CRN and Future Fashion Forward, the labs took on the topic of textile waste in the fashion economy and had us work in groups on different scenarios that would encourage citizens to engage with this issue and work on finding solutions, such as a co-created social media campaign aimed at getting people to organise clothes swaps.

While it was a shame that we could not travel to Berlin for the training, as had originally been planned, it was great to see all of our partners and participants all together and working on some fascinating ideas.

CoSIE Horizon 2020

From probation services in the UK, unemployment provision in Spain, rural development initiatives in Estonia and many more, over the past three years the People’s Voice Media team have been busy working on the CoSIE H2020 project, using insight storytelling strategies combined with curation and story mobilisation processes to the voices of citizens to decision-making processes and enhance public services for the people who access them.

This piece of applied research has been exploring how public services across Europe and across different sectors can be co-created and has taken place across projects in Poland, Estonia, Spain, Hungary, The Netherlands, Italy, the UK, Sweden, Greece and Finland.

Our Role

As part of this work, we’ve been using Community Reporting and lived experience more generally to support the design, implementation and on-going evaluation of the pilots and now at the mobilisation stage of this work, we’ve packaged some of these gathered insight stories together into two playlists for you to watch, one, a playlist of thematic edits where you can see how each pilot country focused on different services and co-creation topics and a second playlist of extracts from individual stories.

These videos are from lived experience stories of citizens, professionals and wider stakeholders involved in the project’s activities.

You can find out more about the project itself here: https://cosie.turkuamk.fi/cosie/

View the THEMATIC EDIT PLAYLIST HERE

View the EXTRACTS PLAYLIST HERE

Community Conversations

Recently People’s Voice Media have been working with a team on the ‘Community Conversations’ project which was commissioned by For Housing and delivered by a consortium of independent organisations led by Ideas Alliance across Salford, Stockbridge Village and Fitton Hill. 

As part of the project, the consortium has been busy working with staff, tenants, and the wider community to better understand people’s needs around wellbeing.

A key part of this has been gathering and telling stories of lived experience within these communities to find out more about life in the area and what matters to residents.

A wide variety of topics came up through the Community Conversations project including what life is like for communities living in each area, the impact of Covid-19 and the theme of technology and communication which ran through many of the wellbeing stories that were gathered by Community Reporters.

Like communities all over the country, the residents of Fitton Hill, Salford and Stockbridge Village have been hit hard by the effects of the pandemic and the resulting lockdowns. Lockdown has been a negative and difficult experience for many people and the isolation and lack of social contact has impacted upon their wellbeing.

Through their stories, people described how digital tools were enabling them to stay connected with loved ones, make new connections with neighbours and switch to new ways of working, particularly during the COVID-19 lockdowns. However, they also told us that constantly using these tools – for work and socialising – can be draining and raised concerns over barriers to accessing technology.

The stories also reveal how people have adapted their ways of working and socialising, and continued to support one another throughout the crisis. Many of the stories tell us that they believe the pandemic has actually brought them closer to their neighbours and we’re looking forward to hearing more from the full reports soon!

In the meantime, it is possible to view some short extracts from a selection of the gathered stories through the For Housing video playlist which can be found HERE

The Co-Production Collective wanted to explore people’s lived experiences of co-production within health and social care research. Working with People’s Voice Media, they used Community Reporting – a pan-European storytelling movement that supports people to use digital technologies to tell their own stories – to capture a series of dialogue interviews with people who identified as ‘co-producers’. These co-producers come from different sectors, work on different projects, and participate in different ways in co-production.

The key findings that emerged from this piece of work are:

• Co-production should be approached as a practice governed by a set of values, rather than an exact science or process.
• Co-production can bring real value to research projects and be key to ensuring that services are more effective and better meet the needs of the people who access them.
• Co-production can be challenging but with support and encouragement, embracing continual and shared learning and by creating spaces for co-producers to connect, barriers can be overcome.

Some of our projects, particularly our European ones, are catching back up after being delayed for so long due to the pandemic. One of these is Co-Engage, an Erasmus+ project designed to contribute to the development of co-creation skills enabling citizens to become social innovators. Part of the project is a series of labs, the first of which takes place at the end of March in a digital form.

We’re looking for a volunteer to attend from the comfort of their own home, with the chance to network with organisations from across Europe as well as learning a thing or two about co-creation practices. A member of the PVM team will also be in attendance. Details of the lab are below:

Topic: Co-discovery.

Overall Goal: Experimenting and testing old practices and new models, focussing on generating participation of citizens as co-implementers and activating people.

Lab Umbrella Topic: Fashion Consumption and Textile Waste problem in cities.

Organisers and facilitators: Future Fashion Forward and Comparative Research Network.

Day 1 – Monday 22nd March 2021 / 9am to 12pm GMT

Day 2 – Tuesday 23rd March 2021 / 1pm to 4pm GMT

Day 3 – Wednesday 24th March 2021 / Self-learning day

Day 4 – Monday 29th March 2021 / 9am to 11.30am GMT & 1pm to 3.30pm GMT

Day 5 – Tuesday 30th March 2021 / 1pm to 4pm GMT

Each of the days presents opportunity for learning, co-creating and networking with a blend of presentations and group work on a variety of challenges, with a fuller agenda being available nearer the time.

A small accessibility bursary is available for each of the days to help meet access costs.

If you are interested in volunteering to take part and have availability on the specified dates, email Sarah at PVM by Thursday 11th March.