Who: Llais is the independent voice for people who use health and social care services in Wales.
The brief: Llais Swansea Neath Port Talbot commissioned me to design and facilitate a summit bringing together mental health stakeholders from across the region, with Platfform as a supporting partner.
The summit was about building relationships and creating the conditions for collaboration, in a context where statutory and third sector partners hadn’t yet found a way to work together effectively. The ask was to create a space where honest conversations could happen, where challenges could be named, and where a shared direction might begin to emerge, without forcing it.
What I did: I designed a full-day programme that moved from emergence to convergence: a morning focused on listening, reflecting and taking stock, and an afternoon focused on honest dialogue and working out what to do next. I used a mix of methods across the day, including presentations and information sharing, small group discussions, circle dialogue, and 1-2-4-all, to vary the pace and create different kinds of space for different kinds of conversation.
On the day I facilitated, scribed, and kept an eye on the dynamics of a room with some complex relationships and a lot at stake.
One of the speakers arrived without any of the briefing materials I’d sent in advance, lost somewhere in NHS email systems. I made a point of speaking with him as soon as he arrived, and it turned out he was entirely happy to present without preparation. What he shared, on the spot, about the region’s mental health transformation programme was detailed, candid, and exactly what the room needed to hear. It set up the afternoon conversations brilliantly.
What came of it: By the end of the day, participants had moved from cautious introductions to generating concrete ideas for working differently together: sharing information more effectively, co-producing with communities, reducing fragmentation across services, and building the relationships needed to make any of it possible. The health board’s transformation programme was on the table, the third sector’s expertise and capacity was on the table, and people left with a clearer sense of what they could do, individually and collectively. A follow-up report was produced to capture the conversations and commitments for participants and those who couldn’t attend.
What they said:
“Thank you for your brilliant facilitation, I felt in safe hands.” (Llais contact)
“You have a lovely calm style that really set the tone for the collaboration.”
“I thought you were a great facilitator, thank you for your lovely peaceful facilitation.”
Photo by James Wainscoat on Unsplash