Context
Lankelly Chase Foundation and York CVS had invested significant time, energy, work and resource into York as a city to explore ways to support and change the systems for people experiencing severe and complex multiple disadvantages including mental ill health, homelessness, drug and alcohol dependency, lack of access to employment and physical illness and wellbeing challenges. This citywide network commissioned the Barrett Values Centre to produce a cultural values survey for the city of York. Our task was to interpret this in a participatory way into a format that could be effectively and usefully shared with the residents of the city and city decision makers to infuse their awareness and decision making with deeper knowledge about the possible futures, actions and impacts of those actions on the people of York experiencing severe and complex multiple disadvantage.
Approach
We worked with participants in the York MCN (multiple Complex Needs) network to design a process of breaking down and understanding the outputs of the values survey, and then after this participatory internal digesting process, we designed a participatory workshop which brought together stakeholders from across the city and engaged them in making sense together of the survey and creating an output report in creative formats which would be made abundantly available to the city decision makers and members of the public. This work also supported and informed the work of the participatory grant making work we were at that time delivering with Two Ridings community foundation.
Statistical knowledge is only as good as the people interpreting it, and taking the next steps informed by it
The layered approach to digesting and understanding the meaning in the values survey was essential in enabling the participants to design the sense making workshop and enhanced the quality of the outputs significantly.
What emerged
Using creative approaches and melding the experiences of those most affected by the outputs of the survey enabled it to be linked to real people and real impacts when the decision makers were reflecting on the survey as a set of recommendations and indicators.
Reflection
Systems wide work requires a marrying of the people most impacted by decisions, with the people making those decisions, and multiple creative, restorative and well resourced relational mechanisms are required to redress the separation of those who make the decisions from those who are impacted by them. Further study is always advised - if you are succeeding at bringing together these two parts of the whole, in a way that elevates the wellbeing of everyone, those stories would be a gift gratefully exchanged.