Our Voice review of 2017

The ALLIANCE Our Voice team review activities over 2017 for our annual report.

The ALLIANCE contribution to the Our Voice framework has been focussed on developing peer support networks for Integration Joint Board public partners and third sector organisations looking to increase/improve the impact of their engagement activities.

An initial national event on 20th February 2017 brought together service user, carer and third sector representatives, with 18 Integration Joint Boards (IJBs) represented, as a way to investigate how Our Voice might best support them. This resulted in a report being published around the challenges facing IJB representatives. The next meeting of the network is scheduled and will aim to focus in on one of these challenges and support delegates to come up with practical steps to help overcome them.

A similar approach has been taken with the Scottish Involvement Network which was established to allow staff who worked in engagement roles to share ideas, collaborate and support each other. A survey was sent out with the view of identifying barriers to meaningful engagement. The Scottish Involvement Network is now discussion ways to support each other to overcome these barriers.

Alongside this work, Our Voice has been supporting new and innovative ways of including and engaging the voices of people with lived experience. One such project is the Cancer Innovation Challenge, run by the Data Lab and funded by the Scottish Funding Council, which seeks to fund projects to develop new ways of gathering and reporting on person reported outcome measures (PROMs) in cancer care. Our Voice is represented on the Engagement Working Group of this project. Outstanding features of this funding process was the involvement of people with lived experience of cancer on the awarding panel. Furthermore, the process of cyclical iteration of digital solutions will involve reference panels featuring people with experience of cancer care pathways. Part of this falls under the ‘Capacity Building’ ambition of Our Voice in that we are working closely with the projects to help them understand different methods of involvement and engagement.

Another strand of work is exploring how engagement tools and processes can be used to co-produce solutions. Arran Locality Planning Forum identified, through engagement with residents, loneliness and social isolation as a strategic priority. Our Voice is keen to ensure that engagement isn’t just seen as a way to identify priorities but also as a way to co-produce solutions. Therefore, the Our Voice delivery team are working with groups and organisations on Arran to reach as many people as possible who can give their views on how people can be supported to feel and be more connected with their community. These views will then be used to design workshops aimed at making some of these ideas a reality using assets that are already in the community.

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