July 21, 2023
Co-producer Maddie reports on what happened at the Community Reporter Conference 2023 and shares her reflections along with those from other members of the Collective that attended. On Tuesday 11 July 2023, People’s Voice Media held their fifth annual community reporting conference in Liverpool. Co-Production Collective went along and had a great day reflecting on the power of lived experience.
Hayley from People’s Voice Media kicked off the day with an introduction to both the community reporting network, which was launched in 2007 and now spans the UK and Europe, and the theme of this year’s conference: Equitable Futures. The theme really spoke to the fact that we are living in an unfair world - from education to health, employment to housing and access to democracy - where unjust things are happening every day. However, we have to have hope that there is something we can do together to help make the world more equitable.
The first break-out workshop of the day was an introduction to community reporting, facilitated by Hameed (also a member of the Co-Production Collective community) and Georgia. As I am someone who is new to this it was good to hear more about it and learn the process. I learnt about the three steps involved in the community reporting methodology:
We spoke about responsible storytelling and the importance of consent and respect for storytellers. The group also spoke about the value of lived experience, and that there are no quick fixes in this work. All in all, it was a great start to the day reflecting on the power of stories.
The second session in the main space was Democracy in Action, on behalf of EUARENAS, a consortium that consists of many different organisations interested in exploring local participatory democracy. The group reflected on what local democracy and decision making should look like in the long-term, not just in this political cycle. We looked at the City of the Future, a visualisation of how cities and urban spaces can support democracy against the backdrop of increasing populism and the war in Ukraine, amongst other threats to democracy. Common elements of the future vision included embracing the natural environment, dismantling oppressive structures and re-humansing our cities. The visualisation had at its centre a sprawling park, bandstand, community space and affordable housing, with protests ongoing at the city hall. In our discussions, we reflected on accessibility and equity, as well as threats to democracy in the UK and the cost of living/greed crisis.
Whilst I was at this session, Nicc (part of the Co-Production Collective staff team) who was also at the event attended another session called “People said we were all weathering the storm, we weren’t in the same boat”: Deaf and Disabled people’s experiences of the pandemic delivered by Isaac, Keymn and Bex. Working with Disability Rights UK, People’s Voice Media have been working with Deaf and Disabled people from across the UK to gather and understand the impact of COVID-19 on them. This session showcased the learnings from this work and asked us to think about our own role in restorative practice as society recovers from the pandemic. This story shared by Keymn is an example of one of the stories collated as part of this work.
After lunch, the third session in the main space was ‘New ways to measure impact: How can lived experience be used as an impact measurement tool?’ held by Kath and Marco. This session was about the Narratives of Impact project, a project aiming for a shift in thinking about storytelling as a way to measure impact and change. Each table was given a different storytelling activity and I took part in the journey story activity. The task was to choose a journey we’d been on and map out the journey in pictures or words. The first box was the ‘ordinary world’, or what the world was like before the journey; the second was the first steps of the journey; the third was ‘initial thoughts’, or how you felt and thought at the start; the fourth was about any challenges or barriers encountered on the journey; and the fifth was the outcome or achievement. I decided to do my journey of learning about co-production, reflecting on my journey from initially being introduced to the idea to teaching others about it and trying to live out the values that underpin it. This task was very powerful for me, helping me to understand how stories can be used to measure impact and reflect on a journey. I hope to use this tool in the future to provide a space for reflective storytelling and to measure impact
The final session of the day was The Future of the Community Reporter Network, in which the People’s Voice Media team reflected on the mission of the Community Reporter Network: to use lived experience to inform research, services and policy and upskill citizens to make a difference in their community. Their aim is to scale this innovative work to expand the reach of people’s stories and they wanted to use the collective expertise and knowledge in the room to come up with ideas on how to expand the reach of the network. There were lots of contributions, we discussed anti-racist work, core funding, service improvement and policy, and embedding community reporting into organisations. There were lots of valuable contributions in the room and there will be an online session after summer to explore contributions and ideas further.
I caught up with a few of the Collective’s co-producers after the event and asked them how they felt about the day:
Cat reflected on the power of stories and the diversity of interpretation and viewpoint. She shared how she often has to keep explaining herself in this line of work, but in these spaces she didn’t have to keep explaining because others just ‘get it’.
Anthony reflected on the positive feeling in the room and how good it felt being amongst friends and like-minded people. He was also struck by the way the event was organised but retained a nice, informal feel to it as well.
Isaac reflected on the kindness and curiosity with which people came to the event and spoke about the need for organisations to work together to achieve change. They also reflected on anti-racism and the need for more global majority people in co-production and lived experience spaces.
Overall, it was an excellent day of conversations within a brave space that was bursting with stories to be told. The power of lived experience was evident, and I would challenge anyone who doesn’t believe in this work to come along to a People’s Voice Media event and see for themselves the power of stories and storytelling. As for equitable futures, we can all do our part to make the world a fairer place, and stories are a wonderful place to start.
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