This information sheet is just for those who are helping ensure that an area’s local headlines report is completed. It isn’t something the whole partnership needs to read through!
Why two posters? Do we have to complete both?
We’ve included a second poster for you to look ahead to next year after reviewing the past year. If you can do both, that’s great, and if you do, please send both sets of information back to us. However, it’s important to us that the activity is useful for you,so if there’s only time for you to complete one for this past year, that’s also fine.
How long will it take?
We believe you need around an hour to agree your “this year” headlines. If you do the “next year”exercise at the same meeting, thissecond part may take less than an hour, just because you may find that thinking about how things have gone will naturally lead to ideas for what you might want to do next.
How should we answer the questions?
There’s more information about how to answer the questions on the next pages, but there are no right or wrong answers. We recommend you try to work throughfairly quickly; first responses are often the things people feel most strongly about and that’s what we’re interested in. We appreciate it could be hard to reach a consensus on just one top achievement or one important lesson learnt. Don’t worry if that’s the case - it’s OK to send in up to 3answers per question (thoughno more than 3 please).
This year in (name of your Big Local)…./
- The achievement we’re most proud of is ..
- We have made the most progress with …
- We feel more confident about …
- The thing we’ve got better at doing is …
/
- The top tip we’d share with other Big Local areas about something that’s worked well for us is …
- The main lesson we’ve learnt from something that hasn’t gone so well is …
/
- The most important thing we’ve done that has helped us be resident-led is …
- A positive change that we have helped make happen in our area is …
/
- The most useful relationship or partnership we have built with others has been …
- The thing that has been most helpful to us is …
Next year in (name of your Big Local) ….
/
- The thing we most want to achieve is ...
- We’d like to make more progress with …
- As a group we want to feel more confident about …
- The thing we want to get better at, is …
/
- We’d most like to learn …
- The thing we will stop doing or do differently as a result of what we’ve learnt is …
/
- The main thing we’ll do to ensure that residents are leading our Big Local is …
- The change we’d most like to make in our area is …
/
- The relationship or partnership with others we’d most like to make (or improve) is …
- The support we think will most help us achieve our goals is…
Though you can run the discussion and come up with your answers / headlinesin any way that works well for your group, from trying this out a few times we’ve found that the following things help.
Be clear
Make sure you give a clear introduction to the meeting and discussion, and explain the purpose of it. It will generate valuable information for the first national evaluation of Big Local but we also hope it will help you as a group reflect, celebrate some of your achievements, and identify what you’ve learnt that will help you (and other Big Local areas) in the future.
Reassure
It’s really important to us that groups feel able to share honestly how things are going. This activity is about what’s being achieved and what’s being learnt along the way, not about assessing areas. To make your session a safe space where people can reflect honestly you might want to:
- make sure groundrules are in place
- point out that there are no right or wrong answers - everyone’s views matter - even if ideas need to be prioritised for the report, they will still be valued during the session
- reassure the group about confidentiality and anonymity - their answers won’t be seen by others except anonymously
- let people know that our interest is in learning not assessing performance
- reassure the group that we have focused on the positives. (Of course reviewing means some negatives may come up, but we wanted this exercise to help us report on achievements and learning. We will capture information on areas’ challenges and the ups and downs of their journeys in other ways.)
Think of ways to move quickly
Time is precious so think how you could save time during your review. You could, for instance:
- put a time limit on the session and be firm in sticking to it. You may need to explain from the start that some discussions may have to be cut short to get all questions answered. It helps to have a time-keeper separate from the facilitator/chair to help keep an eye on the time.
- use “quickfire” approaches. Put strict timings on activities to keep things moving and focus on first thoughts or ideas before in-depth discussions - unless you have lots of time! It may help to make some activities timed or “quickfire” activities – make the timer part of the exercise, for example explaining, “you have 5 minutes to call out your top ideas/priorities starting now”.
- use small groups IF it will speed things up. Getting people into small groups and/or getting them to move around (if mobility is not an issue), can also sometimes generate faster responses and faster thinking than being seated or working in a large group. This isn’t always the case but consider it as an option.
- group questions into five pairs as suggested by the poster. You may find it saves time (and makes sense) to get people to consider the questions in pairs under the headings of (1) our progress; (2) our development; (3) our learning; (4) our influence; and (5) our support.
Keep a record for yourselves
As you prioritise information for writing into your poster and sharing back with us, be aware that it may make people feel a bit deflated if they suggest something that matters to them but their suggestion doesn’t make it into the headlines report. Emphasise that an idea that isn’t popular with others isn’t right or wrong and that no suggestions will be ‘lost’. We recommend you keep a record somewhere of all the achievements and learning points that came out of your discussion to help you with future reviews and/or your own local reporting.
Activity ideas for your “headlines” group discussion
These are a few ideas we’ve come across for how groups could work together to address our questions. Though we know many groups will already have great ways of doing tasks like this, we thought a few suggestions may be helpful for those who aren’t quite sure how to go about it.
1. Group discussion to reach consensus
For groups used to reaching consensus through discussion, simply facilitate a discussion of each question or pair of questions in turn. The facilitator should draw out those responses which the group feels most strongly about, and make sure everyone is able to contribute and thatall views are equally valued and considered. This approach could also work if you split into two groups (which also sometimes helps make sure everyone has a say). You could ask each to discuss the report they’d like to send (ten headlines they’d like to share), then they present to each other, or swap “reports” and discuss before coming back together, and agreeing the headlines.
2. Quickly share ideas (ideastorm) and then vote
A facilitatorasks for the group to just quickly call out the first ideas that come to them (ideastorm)when they think of each of the five pairs of questions - our progress, our learning, our support, etc. The group then has the task of prioritising the thingsfrom the resulting ‘lists’ that matter most, to end up with their top answers – which could be just one answer or up to three. Sometimes groups can prioritise through discussion and clear favourites emerge without much debate. Sometimes voting can help. You can use a show of hands, or use stickers/sticky dots. With sticky dots everyone gets up together and visits the sheets with the lists on and moves around placing a sticky dot next to the response to each answer that they feel most strongly about. This works best if you give people 2 dots per question - if you only give them one they may just vote for their own idea!
3. Roving ideastorm - work in pairs followed by a vote
Write up five flipcharts with a pair of statements on each as illustrated here. Put the five pairs of statements around the room on tables or walls. Ask people in pairs or small groups to visit each one. Each group should start at a different page and write up its quick and instant responses to the two questions. You call time and people then move round the other pages in turn, repeating the activity, still in their pairs/groups. As a group moves around and visits a page another group has just visited, they just add extra ideas if there’s something they want to add that the other group didn't think of. This means they have less work to do as they progress, because most of the ideas will already have been thought of. You can reflect this in the time limits you set, making each stop a little bit shorter as the pages fill. Finish by either reading out and reflecting on each ‘page’ and discussing or voting as a group the priority answers to share in the report.
4. Collect ideas beforehand and present for discussion/voting
If short of time to meet as a group you could send members the 10 questions and ask each to make a list of their one top response to each question. If you have the support to do this, you could collect their ideas in before your meeting and sort through them and present them all on some flipchart paper ready for discussion when you meet, making a note of points raised several times (eg, putting the number of times in brackets or using a number of ticks to indicate how often it was mentioned). Alternatively you could ask people at the start of the discussion to share their responses to each question in turn and once done, discuss or vote on those the group feels most strongly about.