Our work October 2022
21 October 2022
It’s been a busy few months for the Shaping Our Lives team, with ongoing and new projects, a conference to plan for, and an expanding team! Here’s a run down of our work:
We have completed our training support with the King’s College London Cicely Saunders Institute. We were approached and asked if we could support a range of research and clinical staff to develop their knowledge, understanding and confidence to involve people from marginalised and often excluded communities in their work. As there was a range of knowledge and skills among the different staff members we started by completing a training needs analysis using an anonymous survey to gather honest reflections about what people felt they would benefit from. We gave options of if they just wanted a refresher, needed practical hands-on tips or needed a more thorough insight into aspects of inclusive involvement and co-production. From this we were able to design two ‘dynamic’ lunch and learn interactive sessions and a in-person longer workshop. This was supported by a number of template resources. Training covered the following aspects:
- Rewards and recognition, creating accessible materials and organising accessible events.
- Accessible recruitment of PPI participants, role descriptions, collecting access requirements and making reasonable adjustments.
- Co-production, how to do it well.
The resources we have provided include:
- Signposting to user-led organisations and resources for marginalised communities.
- Templates for involvement activities including recruitment materials, role descriptions and selection tools.
- Equality and diversity audit and skills audit
- Inclusive language resource
Please get in touch if we can help your staff in a similar way!
Our Involvement Manager Becki has finished writing the evaluation of the Community Investment Board first year’s activity for Southend City Council and preparing a user-led organisation guide for effective partnership working with university research teams. Look out for these resources to be launched later this year.
The planning for our conference Thinking outside the (Tick)box, on 1st November, continues at a pace, led by inclusion and involvement specialist Roxane Lavanchy. With places now full, she is now liaising with all our speakers and putting together the finishing touches, ensuring that both the online and in-person events are accessible and safe spaces to have service-user led conversations about inclusive involvement.
We’re delighted to welcome our new project manager, Ana-Maria Bilciu to the team, who joins us from working at Loughborough University. She writes: “Having just joined Shaping Our Lives a little over a month ago, I have spent my time educating myself on the work delivered by our organisation, and the positive impact it has on various communities. Additionally, I have been supporting on projects that I will soon be managing, delivering work within the Inclusive Involvement Movement, as well as helping with the recruitment process for the SCRiPT project we are delivering in partnership with The University of Hertfordshire. I am really glad to be working with the incredible team here at Shaping Our Lives, and I look forward to all that is to come in the future!”