The Power Of Local Community Relations

Slide 1: The Power of Community Relationships - a Participatory Training Exercise Paul Cutler www.stronger-and-more- effective.co.uk

Slide 2: The Mapping Exercise • A 2 hour workshop session (with breaks) for 25 local stakeholders from the community • Participants have a mix of backgrounds including service users, family members, professionals, journalists, business and voluntary sector • Representativeness - gender, ethnicity, age, disability and other issues • Uses tools and techniques from mapping theories and action research • Part of a wider participatory programme and a two day workshop

Slide 3: Purpose of the exercise • To answer the question what stakeholder groups exist in the local community? • To answer the question who might be represented on a local participatory forum? • To explore the potential and possibilities of mapping skills and tools • To demonstrate the power and diversity of local networks • To demonstrate the proximity of powerful actors in the community - ‘2 degrees of separation’ • To identify excluded stakeholder groups and explore ways of reaching out • To map the assets of local knowledge shared by stakeholders and consider the potential of deploying these assets in new ways

Slide 4: Strengths of the exercise • Creative and holistic • Practical - learning by doing • Mingling - on hands and knees • Breaking down barriers between multi-agency groups • Visual and colourful • Unlocks hidden or unconscious knowledge and local expertise • Illustrates patterns, assumptions and dynamics that stakeholders are not always aware of • Surprises people about themselves • Contrasts with other sessions in the programme • Fun

Slide 5: Position in the Participation and Policy programme • Development of a local participatory forum • Public action for community level learning and change • Policy skills workshop • Open forum • Participatory forum • Local action

Slide 6: Exercise principles • The exercise (like the workshop) is a shared journey and this is clearly communicated • Facilitators are participants too and do their own maps • Participants own their maps • Diversity issues - gender, ethnicity, age, disability, sexuality and literacy

Slide 7: Running the exercise - part one • Introducing the purpose of the session • Introduction to mapping skills • Providing the tools - paper, pens, collage material • Identifying mapping groups or individuals - stakeholder choice • Supporting the participants as they map • Managing the time • Bringing the participants back to the main group • Maps put on the walls and participants have 10 minutes to look at the different maps

Slide 8: Running the exercise - part two • Group discussion / feedback about the experience of the exercise and the process of mapping • Participants (usually three) are asked to volunteer to explain their map to the wider group • Facilitators make observational comments and invite reflection from the other participants • Map makers supported to annotate their maps where appropriate • Group exercise to look at links between stakeholders, access to sources of power and influence • Diversity considered and barriers to stakeholder participation - who is missing, who is marginalised? • Group summary of original aims of exercise - involvement in participatory forum • Facilitators conclude and link outcomes to previous and future sessions of the workshop

Slide 9: Outputs from the exercise • Maps • Annotations and participant analysis • Proto-list of forum members • Proto-list of stakeholder diversity in the local community • Records of discussions, flip charts and other material

Slide 10: Outcomes from the exercise • Greater awareness of stakeholder relationships • Strengthened networks that can be deployed by local people • Energy and enthusiasm • Trust • Confidence - sharing something personal that is recognised as valuable • Forum design and development moved forward • Mapping skills that can be used in other areas and in the work of the forum

Slide 11: Adult learning • Learning by doing • Unlocking local knowledge and experience in the group • Learning as a group • Creating a learning environment • Using tools, techniques and principles • Transferable skills to the real world • Space to explore real world case studies and examples - concepts in action • Taking responsibility and control of personal and organisational learning • Identifying barriers and using community level opportunities to side step them • Ground rules, comfort breaks and respect • The learning process is the equal of the learning content - sustainable learning and development

Slide 12: Capturing the learning • The actual maps - on the wall • Photos of the maps • Flipcharts and records • Evaluation forms and feedback • Participatory Action Research • Life stories • Reflective diaries

Slide 13: Examples of the mapping

Slide 14: Learning from the learning • The unexpected networks • Hidden capacities and strengths • Iterative feedback to improve the quality and effectiveness of professional systems and build new creative stakeholder relationships • The service user as expert • Taking risks • From maps to models….