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SoWhoCaresAnyway E12 The Story Behind The Story · SoWhoCaresAnyway

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Hello and welcome to So Who Cares Anyway, the podcast that shares learning, innovation and ideas from the world of health and social care and beyond.
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My name is Ruth Germain and I'm inviting you to join me each week with my inspirational guests to hear about who cares.
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What they do, their passions, their knowledge and ideas, and importantly, the difference they are making to improve the health and wellbeing of people in our communities.
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I consider each of my guests to be incredible individuals working with people in new ways or with key messages to share.
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People from healthcare, social care, the voluntary sector, community groups, and more.
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To join me each week to find out, so who cares.
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Anyway, to find out more about me, who I am and what I do, please head over to my website, www.reflectiveruthconsultancy.com,
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where you can also catch up with previous episodes and read my blogs.
Hi, and welcome to the next episode of So Who Cares.
Anyway, today I am delighted to introduce you to Paul Stepak, who I first connected with via LinkedIn.
Paul had put up quite a number of posts.
About his, work that he does around co-production and co-design.
And I clicked on the link and watched Paul's, TEDx video.
So I was really intrigued by the five points that Paul had to share, but we'll come to those later on in the show.
First of all, I just wanna pass over to Paul, and ask you if you'd introduce yourself please.
Thank you Ruth, and thank you for inviting me today.
It's fantastic opportunity.
my name's Paul.,
I'm from a small little village in Wales called Glen Cork.
Very proud of it.
It's a socially deprived area.
But I love it a bit and it's where I learnt my trade, but also where I learned that, there's inequalities in the world and I'd like to help community members be equal and be heard as equals.
I ended up working for Princess Trust up in young entrepreneurs.
I later went on to work within my own community, I went back to it to become a community worker, where I think that's where the bulk of my knowledge, where I gained that from.
And then I went to work for Oxfam, become a self-employed consultant in co-production, asset-based community, et cetera.
And I found my way into working for Compass.
We were called the Cooperative Center then.
So we've been going for about 44 years now, wheel Wales', biggest development agency.
And I work there as the, business development officer.
And in that I do a lot of weird, wild and wonderful things.
But at the moment I spend most of my time either helping small Welsh, community groups better embrace the digital world, or, my primary function is that I work on a project called Start Something Good, where we deliver social hackathons, which are co-design workshops, helping to bring communities and services together to find fresh ideas for social change.
Thank you Paul.
That's a really nice introduction and really helpful.
I'm just gonna ask you, 'cause you mentioned in a previous conversation that you and I have had about how you grew up in the area that you've said it's quite socially deprived, you went off to university and you told me about how it was when you first came back from university that you noticed a difference and you started to think about what basic that you might do about that.
So I wonder if you just briefly tell us a little bit about that please, Paul? Sure.
while you are one of those students in school, in your community, you don't know what, the wider world is and when you go to university, you find out new different things.
I wanted to be a business advisor and this is how I fell into working for, the prince's trust.
But in doing so, sadly I was made redundant and I fell into the charity sector, but I loved it.
I was a development worker back in my own community, and it was only then I could really see the inequalities, if you like.
At the time, when I finished school, only I think four of us from my class ended up going into university.
And when I would return back to Glenco, I was finding that none of the children were going to university.
So for me, that is fundamentally wrong.
And in a combined effort with a action research organization called, people and work unit and the schools obviously and all the services, we created a project to try and tackle that.
And although the community did have a lot of problems.
We tried to tackle everything through the power of education and so to solve the environmental issues.
We did environmental courses with health.
There were certain health courses, but fundamentally we did everything for a while through the lens of education.
But it was a holistic, intergenerational approach.
So.
In order to change a culture and a community with regards to, education, we needed to involve everyone.
So we had a project with parents of young children trying to get the young parents involved in education.
We had project with the youth club, connected with the local comprehensive school, and we also had a project with added education.
And so what we were trying to do is that a child is only gonna be engaged in education if their parents believe in it.
So we had to take this into generational approach, but a fantastic thing resulted from it.
Not only did we see the, attainment and attendance rise.
But we also had a point where we had parents doing their GCSEs alongside the children, which was absolutely a joy to watch.
Children just seeing education in a different guise.
Up until then, we had parents who would rather the child go to jobs straight from school 'cause they wanted the income quickly.
But we also had to work with the adults to let them understand that, it is a lot more beneficial if we look at the longer game rather than get money in your pockets right now.
So I learned a lot from that experience and that was my introduction to asset based community development and co-production before we even know those terms, were about, we didn't even realize that what we were doing were co-production and were asset based community development.
Yeah, that was my first taste within a, community setting.
Thank you Paul.
And I know we're gonna come onto the, co-production bit in a moment and these principles that you have.
But for those people that are listening who perhaps don't understand so much about asset, based community development, I wonder if you just wanna give a brief description of what you consider that to be please, to help people to understand that.
Essentially asset-based community development is just harnessing our strengths.
It's not a deficit model, it's an asset model.
I worked specifically on a project with Oxfam and we looked at five assets, those being social assets, our networks, our connections, our human assets, which are our head, hand, and heart, the things that we can do, our knowledge and experience, our, skills and abilities, and then also our motivations and drivers, public assets.
These are the public services that we can all access, whether that be a health department, education departments, whether that be.
Parks, recreational area, community transport, et cetera.
Then we've got physical assets.
These are physical items that we need to do, what we need to do on a daily basis, whether that'll be a car, a computer.
And when we are looking at communities, we are also looking at, white goods.
If a washing machine breaks down, that could be detrimental to the family's finances.
So it all depends in what context.
And the final thing we look at is financial assets, and that is what finance we've got access to.
I specifically leave that to loss because really sometimes when we map all the assets that we've got in front of us.
We sometimes we don't need to go to finance.
It's all too often we go for the quick thing where we need funding, we need a loan, et cetera.
But actually by tapping into the assets that we've already got, our social networks, the services which are already out there, sometimes we don't actually need them.
So those are the five assets that I was involved in with Oxfam.
But I think there's another one which is parked a little bit, which in the general world of asset based community development is the other part of storytelling.
So I also work with people to find out their stories and for them to allow them to tell me exactly the backgrounds, to get more contextual feel of the situation that they're trying to resolve, basically.
Thank you, Paul, that's really helpful.
And gives that picture that, as you say, that asset based is about what people have got, what's available to people, and using those in the broadest context, which I think is really useful when people are thinking about co-production and co-design.
So I wonder if you want to talk me through about, I know that you've got these five principles for co-production and co-design.
I wonder if you want to talk us through that.
And as you do each one it would be really nice to understand each part as to they mean and give some explanation.
And if you want to, you can hook it to a story or afterwards I might ask you to give me a story separately, whichever way you prefer to do it.
Okay.
Being a consultant in co-production.
There was, so there was a number of different definitions, if you like, and I really needed something that I could just quickly explain.
Now, there is the lad of co-production, so I would also recommend people Google, the lad of co-production.
For me, co-production has a five point plan.
It's something that I came up with to try and explain it a little bit easier in one sentence.
I would also refer always to the ladder of co-production, 'cause I find that as a fantastic resource.
But when I'm out in public, I explain it as co-production is the co-design.
Co delivery and co-ownership of a project or a service in equality and reciprocity.
The co-design is paramount.
If the idea isn't co-designed, then it's imposed.
So for me, that's not co-production.
So what we need is first of all, co-design where we bring people together to look at the problem from the different strengths, from the different insights, and together come up with a solution.
And in doing so, that needs to be done through dialogue, not just, surveys, et cetera.
There needs to be people in the room actively talking to each other and going through those process of sharing assets, sharing insights, and sharing the ideas to construct that idea.
So the next stage is code delivery where.
Co-production isn't something that starts off with two parties together, and then someone takes that forward.
It is an ongoing dialogue that needs to continue, and that's where the delivery comes in.
Both parties can support each other with the delivery.
Now, if we are talking in a health, perspective, there's certain things that doctors can do and the general public can't.
Quite obvious, but there needs to be.
I think more from a preventative, perspective.
There's lots that we can do on the ground as communities to co-deliver, initiatives, but we need the expertise and the skills and the assets from both areas and perspectives to come together to do that.
And the last part is co-ownership.
So the co-ownership is that all that previous process needs to be owned by both of them, not the service or the people that use those service can take.
Sole ownership of that problem that both take ownership for it, because this is a, it's a continuum.
It doesn't just stop there, it continues.
So what we have is those three elements of the co-design, co delivery, and co-ownership.
But throughout the whole of the process, we have this equal sharing of participation and perspectives and the reciprocal learning from each other as well, because there needs to be this mutual understanding from both sides of what constrictions they've got, what assets they've got.
So that's how I put everything into that one bubble, if you like.
Thank you.
And I like that about that mutual understanding on both sides of their restrictions, their assets, and.
The fact that that runs all the way through, because sometimes when I sin co-production, things happen at the beginning, but then actually it shifted onto somebody else to do, or it doesn't follow through.
So that fact that you follow that through.
So I'm gonna ask the question because, I think it's probably in there, but you mentioned that this has got five steps, but you've talked about really, that are obvious straight away about those three parts of the co-design, co delivery and co-ownership.
So, is it that the last part has got those two steps to it that brings it up to the five? And apologies if I'm asking something obvious.
No, sure.
The two steps I've got is the equality and the reciprocity, which follows right through.
So those would be my checklist.
It's a co-design.
Is it co-deliver? Is it co-owned? Have we implemented equality throughout this and have information assets and insights been reciprocated throughout this as well.
Thank you for that clarification.
I thought that was probably what it was, but I just wanted to clarify that those last two strands are actually strands that run all the way through, and by doing that, it holds everything together to ensure that you keep that ownership at the end.
So that's really useful.
So I wonder if you would, mind sharing something that you've worked on recently or in the past where you feel that, because I think most of these things make a difference to the people in the community, that's the whole point of these.
So it doesn't particularly have to be health based, but anything that you, where you've done something where you think this really is a good example of this working well.
If I look at a, an old health example, it's back in history, but it was my first taste.
In 2010, I was contacted by, the local public health board because, we had, a couple of people from my local community, which we discovered that they had tb and there was, a realization that we needed to check 300 people.
Considering that the population of the village is 3000, that's quite significant.
Yes.
And so I was called to the local hospital as an advisor from the community to say, how can we do this? So they told me that they needed to test 300 people.
I.
And the first, suggestion was that we needed to bring those 300 people to the community.
And I had to then explain that my community is very socially deprived.
We are 12 miles away from the hospital, which would be two bus journeys.
So you mean you had to bring those 300 people from the community to the hospital? Absolutely.
Yes.
So in order to do that, we would need to bring 300 people to the hospital on day one for a test, day two for the results.
And then if they were positive, they would have to come back for a six week course.
But I had to explain that the people of the community were on low incomes, and that would be two bus journeys each time for a family of four.
It just.
Was impossible.
The other thing that we had was, the hospital had given us a four page letter, which was quite technical, and we had quite a bit of, literacy issues within the communities, fair to say, which a lot of those people would've read that and wouldn't know what it meant, or would've had to pass it on to someone else.
And the last thing you wanna do is create mass panic by everyone passing these letters around so that people think this tb throughout the whole of the community.
Of course.
So how do we do this? How do we resolve this issue? So at the time, what I decided was that to bring the two people from the hospital up to the community and to meet some of, the key individuals from that community with regards to community engagement.
When I started my journey, I read a book called The Tipping Point, my by Malcolm Gladwell, and he recognized three different personalities, if you like, which have certain social capital.
These are connectors, people that connect people.
These are VINs.
These are people that hold knowledge and equally shea knowledge.
And there are also.
Salespeople.
Now, I don't like that word is a bit too commercial.
I did change that word to influencer, but then social media changed the connotation of that word as well.
But these are people that are just trusted.
These are people in communities that people are act.
So for me, in my old community, the most powerful person without even realizing it, is the lady that runs the bingo on a Sunday afternoon because she's the person that everyone knows and everyone grew up.
So what I had to do is we found who these personalities were within the community, and so in one room.
In a church hall one night, we had the representatives from the hospital.
We had the local pub landlord, the local counselor, the local news correspondent, and the local person who runs the bingo, the rugby captain.
We had all these people that are trusted within their community, and that's when they gave those people exactly the same talk that I had received from them about the situation that we needed to get 300 people vaccinated without it getting into the mass media and creating any panic.
So, in doing so, what we decided was, number one, we had to rewrite that letter, because we needed for people to be understood.
But what we decided was that because these people in this room had the trust of the community, they were gonna go and hand deliver those letters.
So they were explaining what was happening and why these people needed to have the vaccination.
Secondly.
We explained the situation that there is no way that we could maneuver all those community members to the hospital.
So I know we've done this since quite easily with Covid, but it was radical at the time.
We transformed the local church into a vaccination center for a week.
And so out from outside, everyone thought they were just going into the church hall, but we were getting vaccinated, so it didn't create mass, et cetera.
But what it did for me is I, saw that by bringing those, people from the health board and the communities together, they'd never met before, but both of these had a part of resolving that problem.
And they needed to have that dialogue and just by putting them in a room together, we resolved that problem very quickly.
And if my memory's correct, 70 had to go for extra chest x-rays and 50 were positive.
So there would've been 50 people within that community that had tb, which didn't know about it.
But by that one community exercise, by bringing the health service together with the community, we were able to manage that and resolve that issue, if you like.
So that was my first real life experience about bringing a service and a community together to resolve a common problem.
So, that's for me was like, more of this needs to happen, more of these,, there's so much to be gained by bringing both parties together and this preventative solution to issues that both community needs to be resolved.
And so do the services.
That's a really nice example.
And actually I'm just wondering, 'cause you've said about sort of the numbers from the point of view of how many people were diagnosed and that, of those 300, my question is, did all 300 go along to that church, to that test center and interact with the services? Every one of them went through? Yes, and I think we couldn't have done it unless we'd had those individuals that we've identified from the community to be, able to do it.
I was the first person to have the jab.
I had to do it as a bit of an example.
So I was there at the front of the queue with the young people.
I was a youth worker at the time, so the young people had to see me do it, to be honest with you.
So, although I didn't need it, I still had to do it, but all 300, had the vaccination.
In fact, I think it was 330, but.
I can hand on heart side.
I don't think that would've happened if we had stuck to the original plan of having a letter and hoping that they would've traveled 12 miles, two bus journeys to go to the hospital.
So for me, that was just like how I could see by working together in unison,, how effective that was yeah, it is actually a massive difference, isn't it? 'cause not only did you get a hundred percent engagement, which is very rare in these types of situations,.
But as you say, you reduce that mass panic.
And also some of that stigma that might have been around people saying, oh, they're the people with TB or they've got TB,, or I might get it or I'm not gonna talk to them.
And those sort of things.
There could have been a lot of stigma and things that came out of it that presumably that managed.
Yeah.
One of the suggestions from the hospital team, I've gotta say it 'cause I just think it's quite funny, is that one of the suggestions when I said about the bus journey is that how about we send a couple of, 52 seater buses up to Glenco and we'll bring them all to the hospital.
I'm like, who is gonna want to jump on this bus? To me, it'd be, who wants to go on the TB bus if you like? I'm like, no, we're not gonna do it that way.
It was very radical at that time to open up a vaccination center in a community.
It's common practice now since what happened with Covid, but this was 2010.
But when you work alongside your community, this is the perfect example of how you realize that, there are strengths within that community that can be tapped into, both sides, both the hospital and the community on the side needed to have the same problem resolved.
And they both brought their assets to the table.
One brought their knowledge and experience and be able to vaccinate people.
The other brought those connections and made that whole event happened.
I don't think it would've happened unless those two had come together.
Without panic.
Very simply, achieved.
And, yeah, it was just a, a really nice way to see, a service and a community come together to resolve a common problem.
So at the time you were a youth worker, and I'm just wondering, was there any other, benefits or positives that came outta this that perhaps weren't so just health related within that community, did you see any other changes at all or anything however small or big that.
It created that difference and that, I suppose I'm asking that question where I'm thinking about you as a community worker, a youth worker getting up first and saying, right, I'll have this done.
You know, was there anything that came from that? From me, it was just learning from the experience myself.
It really showed me the power of how communities and services can actually depend on each other.
Both of assets, that action can come together to make, a much stronger solution.
I once delivered a co-production workshop where, I had community members, service members, and local GPS in a room together.
And one of the GPS stood up to say, how can the community members help me improve my service? I've been a doctor for 20 years where one of the young people who's 20 years old said, I've been a patient for 20 years.
And for me that was just like a little bit of a two shame moment, but also it's right.
Every service has two parts.
There's someone who delivers our service and someone that receives our service, so why shouldn't they be talking together to try and make things better for each other? But both sides need to have this understanding of each other, but also both sides have assets to be able to apply to a solution.
I.
And after that had happened and that young person stood up and said, well, actually I've been a patient for 20 years.
Did that change the dynamics in the room? Did that change or make any difference? There was certainly that woo moment.
I know that for much, but I knew that GP didn't say much more after that, and I was thinking, good on, for that young person to stand up and say that.
And that's typical of the community work they've done, that people have got a voice and they are willing to speak.
It's just about being able to be given the platform to be able to do so.
Did that mutual understanding come? That's what I'm wondering within that, because obviously you've talked about those areas and then you've talked about.
The people having that equality and rec hypocrisy.,
I think I said that right.
Reci, reciprocity.
Thank you very much.
Reciprocity.
I've got that completely wrong.
About having that and obviously, it is quite challenging, I suppose when somebody's been doing a job and essentially doing that job well, whatever that might be.
And then you're asked to do it differently and then you get challenged, then that's quite a difficult thing to manage and navigate.
So what I'm wondering is, I presume that project that you're talking about has some positive outcomes.
So do you think that.
Perhaps just tell us about the project a little bit more so we can understand what the outcome was.
And, think about how we can make sure that when we engage with people that, as I say, doctors, nurses, other professionals are doing their job day to day and suddenly to go into this and get challenged might feel quite daunting.
But actually what can we do to say it is worth going along? It is worth being challenged.
It is worth making a difference in that way.
Yeah.
The piece of work was actually just, we had someone, dictating what the conversations were round table and that got fed up to, people who further up the chain, if you like.
So I don't really know what happened after, but what that did do, I think is it give food for thought for everyone in that room.
And for me it was that part where I think the penny drop for a lot of people in that room where actually.
This person is Right.
And a number of the GPS did stand up for that young person saying, yeah,, he's got a point here.
You know, he's been listened to a so I'm hoping that had some, a knock on effect with the way that people think about things absolutely you're saying about how some of the gps there, they actually came and stood up for that person or said, actually we can see that he's got a point.
And perhaps they were thinking what the other GP was saying.
Who knows? But yeah, he's got a point, he's been a patient for, 20 years and what's going through my mind, having worked in general practice as a nurse is I think about the number of people we call it DNAs did not attend.
So actually.
Just because we've been doing that and doing that.
Well, sometimes people don't attend, they don't turn up or don't even book an appointment in the first place.
'cause they think actually there isn't the service or the thing there that they need.
And maybe there is, maybe there isn't.
So maybe there's something about understanding that side as well.
And I think that's really important is that for me it's witnessing the dialogue and allowing people to have that dialogue.
I totally get it.
The doctors are under an immense strength firefighting.
How do they get that opportunity to stop and listen to patients? You know, probably got what, five, 10 minute window? Yeah.
And, so this was an opportunity to do that.
I'm hoping that was a bit of an epiphany moment for that doctor.
There's certainly other people in the room that basically thought, wait a minute, there is a point here.
And I would like to see more opportunity whether we can do it in the time and the space we've got.
But I do think there needs to be some sort of vehicle for an opportunity for dialogue, for people to listen, not just consultation with survey results.
The public's opinion is this, this, this, that can be, collected in a certain way, only certain type of, so people complete those surveys.
in some instances, that dialogue needs to happen.
And that is fundamental throughout the whole of the co-production process.
Going back to co-production is that discussions need to be, had two way discussions.
Otherwise it's consultation, it's not co-production.
So I'm hoping that in, that,.
Situation that it took those people to have a bit more of a step back if you like, to realize the value of talking to people and having that opportunity to do so.
I'm just hoping going forward that there are more opportunities for dialogue between communities and any services that they're working with.
Yeah, I think that's really helpful and I think it is about just saying to people that this is just a dialogue and I think you're bit there about saying this isn't consultation, this is co-production, co-design.
And people might say things that feel uncomfortable or challenging, but actually in doing that, then it allows them to have that voice and if we are to sort out and try and make sure that we don't have people not attending appointments in the case of general practice, but.
Actually people come along because they feel that they're going to get the thing that they need.
And it goes back to, the discussion that I had with, Mark Spencer, who took a completely different stance on, general practice and went out and asked people, but asking people what matters to you.
Yeah.
So there is something about just changing that bit.
But at the same time, as you say, recognizing that, much of the time people are just firefighting, they're trying to get things done and they're trying to meet expectations because constantly there's expectations from the people that they're caring for their communities, but there's also expectations from the commissioning units or the integrated care system or whatever they're called at the time, right the way up to government.
And those things come back down again.
So people are constantly trying to manage those expectations, manage their team, manage their staff, but then actually go into a situation like this.
And I can imagine it can feel quite vulnerable actually to.
Be there doing that if you're challenged.
I know working in co-production myself and done some of that and I didn't have that challenge, so I was quite lucky.
But if you do get that challenge, that can be quite difficult really, to manage.
And there is something about having that awareness and that, as you say, that equality, and making sure that it happens for both sides.
'cause that young person had equality to be able to speak, but making sure that the GP felt comfortable with that, at the same time.
So it's quite a difficult balancing act, but I think it's probably something that you've probably honed in as things happen over the years that you probably learned a lot of those skills and those things that, that you're talking about.
Yeah, for me, it's hearing the story behind the story because with consultation, you'll be told.
X, Y, Z, but what's the background to that? And that will only happen if you have dialogue and to have that understanding.
But also, if we go back to a co-production perspective, when you do that, communities can come together to provide assets and strengths to and, to find the stories behind the story.
This yet again comes back to asset-based community development.
Storytelling is fundamental to it.
But when we see numbers on paper, whether that be a quite detailed consultation, we don't really understand the story behind it.
So dialogue allows us to do that, and this is why dialogue is fundamental to that co-production process.
It is literally the two parts of the parcel.
The people that are delivering the services and the people that received those services.
Having an equal and reciprocal relationship throughout that whole process.
And going back to some of the studies I've told before, as where that's when you'll understand insights from each other's perspective, and also you'll find that the strengths from each other's perspective that you can harness.
You've told me lots there,, Paul.
And there's quite a few things that have come out, where you've really managed to highlight, those key bits that need to run all the way through that you've spoken about and then talked about that co-design, getting everybody there, those stories behind the stories.
I really like that phrase, there's something behind it.
Whether it's a, somebody turning up to general practice with a story about what's going on for them.
Whether it's somebody going into the schools you spoke about earlier on and thinking, oh, actually the most important thing I need my young persons to do is to get out to work and start earning some money.
And perhaps changing those stories in people's minds.
They start to think, oh actually this is what I need to do.
This is what needs to happen.
And think about them in a far broader context, whether they be the person that's, working in public services or whether they be the community themselves and what you're describing here, it allows people, to move through those stories and then come up with something that's far more joint and far more interrelated.
Would that be a fair reflection? I think that'd be fair.
So, the penny dropped for me many years ago when, as a youth worker I was supporting a young person and he was truant quite a lot or late for school, quite a lot.
And obviously the school got in contact me 'cause they were concerned he was a bright kid.
But why was he playing truant and why was he late every day? And when I peeled back those layers, I found out that his parents had a alcohol problem.
And he was the dad, for the other three children in that family.
So he was getting all the other children ready for school, he was getting their pens, pencils ready, et cetera, getting their lunches ready, and he was setting them off to school before he did.
Oh, wow.
I see.
So then he's turning up to school and he's been,, a lovely, lovely kid.,
but he's the one who's getting in trouble in school, but, he can't really explain to the teachers that he basically, the acting father in this situation.
So, everyone's gonna have a story behind that story, which we only see at face value, and especially within a health setting.
We only tell them what's wrong with me right now.
There's no way of knowing the history behind it, et cetera.
So this is what I mean by it's important sometimes to know the stories behind those stories.
And that's a really amazing, powerful picture actually, because that child obviously was taken on a huge amount of responsibility and yet for whatever reason, they didn't feel that they could actually go along to their score and talk about that.
And what you're talking about is in co-production and co design, suddenly there is something where people can say, let's talk about these stories behind there.
Let's give a voice to that child, to that adult, to whoever else they are.
So we start to understand and rather than just saying, well, this person's behaving this way because of whatever, which is the story we've made up, we've actually taken the time to listen to the background of people's stories and to really understand them.
So I like that.
Absolutely.
As as an example.
And it's very powerful.
And obviously, For that child, you just think, wow, what an amazing child that they were.
And suddenly that reframes your picture of that child from being somebody who couldn't be bothered to go to school and return in to somebody who really cared passionately.
So what change in your head once you understand and know that story about that young person and the power of those stories? So before we finish, Paul, I wonder if you want to share what you would be your key takeaways for anybody who's listening today? What would be the most important things for people to take away from this? Do you think? And you can talk on individual level, but also, if you want for people within the public sector, what would be your key takeaways for them as well? My key takeaways from like a community engagement perspective is that,.
Number one, we need to create the right environment.
So, for me, with regards to services working alongside communities, the first thing I would say was that you need to go to them.
Community members, find big buildings intimidating sometimes.
I really tried on numerous occasions to take, community members to like universities and these, public buildings.
And they struggled.
There was a fear of them going into these buildings.
So from a community development perspective, I'd say the most important thing is to ensure that you're in the right environment.
That everyone is equal.
And the best thing to do for that is to go to where the community members are.
Take lanard off, don't wear the suit.
Basically engage with people as people.
Then the next thing you need to do really is that people engage for two reasons, really.
One, to fulfill their own need.
So it's to find out what that is, or secondly, they wanna be part of what we call a tribe.
They wanna be, they believe in a vision or something that they wanna change something.
So you need to give them an opportunity to be able to do that.
And to do that, there needs to be multiple ways of entry, different ways they can do it.
There needs to be some sort of quick wins so that people see that something is happening, something is changing.
But that also needs, a bit of a leader really, that anything that is a gathering of people, someone needs to take ownership of it.
'cause if no one does, nothing happens.
So it needs to be some sort of a leader, whether that be an organization or an individual that people trust in to be able to follow it.
So that's the one thing that there's two ways that people engage.
The other thing is what I came to earlier, that is that finding the right people to engage.
So going back to those Malcolm Gladwell personalities I mentioned earlier.
You've got the connectors, the VINs, and the salespeople.
These people have a certain amount of social capital within communities.
And if you can get the trust of those and trust is the gold dust, everything across this whole conversation comes down to build in trust and being transparent and open with each other.
If you can get the trust of those will help you engage much wider audiences and be a complete asset to what you're trying to gather.
So yeah, that would be my kind of leaving legacy thing is about how to engage people, but to know that if you engage people and you work alongside them, have that dialogue with them, we'll be better informed.
Services will be improved.
Quality be improved, trust and transparency will be improved.
If you embrace communities as part of, a solution to work alongside people, magic can happen.
I truly believe that.
And I was gonna ask you why co-production was un co-design was so important.
But actually you've just answered that a really succinctly and nicely there.
So thank you.
You've not only told us, the things that needed to happen, but why it needs to happen.
So thank you so much for joining me today.
It's been really insightful, Paul.
So thank you.
Thank you for inviting me.
It is pleasure.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.
Thank you.
Bye.
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