On Thursday the first of the Supporting Pipes workshops kicked off in Glasgow. 36 people arrived, making up five groups of one facilitator, a service provider, a carer and a person(s) with a long term condition(s). One of our groups was made up of carers and people with long terms conditions.
We began the morning by watching a short film about the main insights our research uncovered;
The groups talked about these insights and decided what one they wanted to focus on for the rest of the day.
We designed tools that helped participants see a world of possibilities “What if you had a cheque for one million pounds? What if you could zoom into the future?” This helped encourage new ways of thinking and all thoughts were scribbled down, collected and put together.
The groups voted on what idea to take forward and then developed it into something that could exist in reality. By concentrating on one idea several themes began to pour out of the session; experiences of isolation, fear, stalled communication, wrong information and delayed inclusion.
The afternoon called for groups to pull their idea into a storyboard and nearer to reality. Using character personas they questioned… how would Mary use this idea? How would it make a difference to her? Who would make this idea happen?
The results were incredible, and when we managed to keep the room quiet for ten minutes (!) someone from each group stood up and presented their idea.We had some brilliant raconteurs who really brought their idea to life.
The ideas ranged from ways to find a buddy, communication master classes and timebanking to name a few. Click here to see all the ideas.
Using the template of a newspaper we asked the participants to imagine what the rest of the world would say about their idea if it was real. This helped the groups see beyond the hurdles of making an idea a reality and open up to the possibilities of their concepts.
All the ideas were fantastic. These ideas will be developed at our next workshop in Edinburgh on Thursday.
We uncovered these learnings which we took forward into the next workshop:
- Sustainability
Offering an additional audio and visual option to any service provided on-line (accommodate for different languages too – cultural barrier to understanding health info) - Promotion
Communication skills of support workers, health professionals and family - Importance of understanding role
Need skills and training to know where to signpost people - Individual empowerment and having the motivation to change
- Recognising the role of the voluntary sector and strengthening links with health, social, public and private sector
Time and again, dialogue with people with long term conditions reminds us that not everyone is connected to the web. ALISS and SupportingPipes seeks to be truly inclusive, and to do this, needs to find a way for those people who can neither use the web, nor attend one of our workshops, to contribute their stories, their experiences and points of view.
