Showing up for conversations in spaces where people go
A general principle when we’re starting the early stages of an engagement project is this:
We don’t hold conversations about people’s experiences in the places where those experiences happened.
We use visual boards with drawings and large words wherever possible. We avoid printed surveys on clipboards.
Because when we have conversations about experiences, what people share is often richer, messier and more meaningful than a Likert-scale tick in a box.
It’s not always possible, and sometimes it is appropriate to have more focussed conversations or collect structured data. But wherever we can, we seek to avoid it as a first step. It’s one of the trauma-informed practices at Spark that we value.
We go to places that people already go – public events, shopping centres, family fun days. We’ve also been invited into people’s homes and sat around their kitchen tables, on sofas and in back gardens, talking about their experiences, what was valuable and what they wished might be different.
We frame conversations about experience as invitations to share. As much or as little as they like. When they’re ready.
Of course, there can be project constraints. Time. Targets. The number of conversations ‘required’ to meet milestones. But wherever possible, we go with the flow of the conversation, rather than forcing it into a shape.
We offer different ways to share experiences. Talking. Writing. Drawing. Selecting images to describe a feeling. You can write and/or draw. We can write and/or draw. We can do it together.
What feels different? It’s slower.
Conversations deepen and evolve. People share what comes up for them in the moment. There are often emotions. A wide range of them.
Listening to a parent’s experience of Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) at a Family Fun Day.
Here’s Alex, in the photo taken at a recent Family Fun Day, listening to a parent’s experience. We were invited to listen to families’ experience about Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) at an Athletics Stadium.
When we’re planning and setting up sessions like these, we give time and energy to establishing a warm, welcoming and safe environment – and a fun one – long before a single question is asked.
Thinking Out Loud is where I share short pieces of thinking from the middle of the work. Ideas, questions and lived experiences, offered while they’re still forming. (Tiny Experiments Pact: Day 18/100).