Who: The Gwent Regional Partnership Board (RPB)
In Wales, RPBs bring together health boards, local authorities and the third sector to meet the care and support needs of people in their area.
The brief: The current strategy (2019-2024) for Independent Professional Advocacy in Gwent was co-produced with commissioners, providers and service users back in 2018. (I was there!) It is time to review it and write the new strategy (2024-2029). The RPB team responsible for this work commissioned the design and facilitation of a one-day session to gather feedback and elements for the new strategy.
What I did:
- I worked with the team to define the focus and content for the day, map the participants and networks for the team to invite in order to ensure good representation, and draft the pre-event information.
- I designed the session plan to include a mix of short presentations feeding into group conversations in tables (morning) and circulating around the room (afternoon): looking back (what happened), looking around (horizon scanning), and looking forward (what next).
- I produced the slides and materials, making sure they were all in plain language, with easy-read illustrations for additional clarity.
- I compiled the session’s outputs into a thematic summary report, for the team to feed into the new strategy.
- The session was captured by illustrator and graphic facilitator Laura Sorvala. This created engagement on the day, was useful for accessibility and helped track the progress of the session through its different phases, and serves as a visual summary of the discussions which will be used to illustrate the strategy document.
What they said: Participants’ feedback highlighted how much they appreciated the opportunity to network and build connections in their sector, share challenges, and work collaboratively. Some of the relationships and networks that supported the last strategy had been lost due to the impact of the Covid pandemic; this event rekindled some and generated others. The outputs captured were rich and will usefully inform the work on the new strategy.
Image credit: illustration by Laura Sorvala for Gwent Regional Partnership Board