advice

Throughout our activities we reflect on ourselves, inclusiveness and how the other people we work with are responding.

Reflecting on ourselves involves:

• Tuning in to our emotions and observations before, during and after groupwork
• Thinking about the experiences, attitudes and positions that we bring to our practice
• Developing awareness of the connections between ourselves and the people, places and issues explored
• Considering how and when to share or not share elements of our selves
• Encouraging and embracing feedback on our practice

Participation is always voluntary.  But we want to make sure that children are not left out by mistake. So, we spend time:

• Observing how each individual is participating
• Offering emotional support or space
• Asking for suggestions and offering alternative activities
• Identifying which groups of children are left out and getting advice on how to include them
• Building skills and understanding so that individuals and organisations can respond to different communication needs and remove any practical barriers.

Participatory action projects have an impact on the individuals involved in leading them, those who participate, on stakeholder organisations, and sometimes on communities, services, policies, laws, understanding and practice. To gather this sort of information about impact we use:

• Diaries
• Observations
• Individual and group evaluation tools
• Documents
• Stories of significant change.

We share examples of impact on this website.