Connecting and reconnecting

Each quarter, we take time to reflect on the progress we’re making and share it with you. Here are our reflections on the work we’ve been doing, highlighting what we’re learning, and recognising with gratitude the contributions of everyone involved.

Over the past few months, we’ve had lots of opportunities to do the facilitation work that Just Ideas is known for and good at, and that we enjoy. We’ve noticed a theme emerging around connection. It’s been happening when we help teams to connect with each other, and with their different audiences, and also when we reconnect with people we worked with years ago, who have come back to us wanting to work together again.

Help On Your Doorstep

We first worked with this brilliant charity seven years ago, and we’ve been glad to reconnect with them to facilitate two away day sessions, at the end of 2024 and start of 2025.

Help on Your Doorstep (HOYD) aims to improve the health and wellbeing of people in Islington, especially those who are vulnerable and isolated, providing early support and working in partnership with other voluntary and public services.

HOYD asked us to facilitate a session to bring their teams together, recognise achievements and share their understanding of current context for their work. We tried to strike a balance between giving them valuable time together as a team, and considering what to prioritise over the coming year. What emerged was that they’re a remarkable bunch of people, meeting the challenges they’re facing with creativity, passion and resourcefulness.

Following the success of the first session, HOYD invited us back to run a second session, focusing on how teams could understand each other’s priorities and support each other to achieve their aims. We discussed what was important to hold on to, as an organisation, in the face of a lot of challenges.

We tried out a new approach to visualising interconnecting needs and priorities, creating a massive grid on paper on the wall. The outcomes of the session were a better understanding of each other’s needs, and a clearer idea of how to support each other to deliver on their proirities. We also focused on how HOYD can demonstrate the difference its work makes, connecting with people in their community and reach a range of audiences to raise funds for their work.

Integrated approach to health inequalities in Hammersmith & Fulham

Another good reconnection happened when a contact that we worked with seven or eight years ago approached us about facilitating a series of workshops with Hammersmith and Fulham Borough’s Health and Care Partnership.

The team there is looking at working in a more integrated way, both with local organisations and with residents and families. They’ve decided to focus on early years, which is an area where we’ve been building experience in our recent work with The Magpie Project.

We will be co-designing ways of working, drawing on our skills in finding ways for organisations to talk with each other and the communities they work with. It’s likely to involve a series of three workshops, exploring ways of working together to engage families with under-fives that aren’t currently accessing the support they need.

The Magpie Project

The event we facilitated for The Magpie Project alongside their AGM at the end of last year resulted in some really important progress for the charity.

A small team from Just Ideas (Helen, Shae, Natalie and Helena) facilitated a session with Magpie staff and volunteers, and the mums that help steer the project. The purpose was to help the team to shape the way they describe their vision, mission and values.

As more and more people joined the session, the space got more crowded and the available time got shorter, but we adapted. We split into three groups, each facilitated by a Just Ideas team member. Our new associate, Helena, rose to the occasion and did a great job.

We had a brilliant, buzzy session where the Magpie team identified what’s really important about what they want to do and how they’re doing it. From our discussion, we wrote the vision, mission and values that capture the essence of what The Magpie Project is and does. Natalie created a beautiful image to illustrate it.

Our vision is of powerful mums building a world of equity and kindness for all our children to thrive.

That afternoon, the trustees met and agreed the vision, mission and values, which felt very powerful. There was a shared sense that there’s so much wrong with the current system and so much work that needs doing to improve it. At the same time, we were conscious of a real sense of power coming from this group of women. The mums expressed the empowerment that’s happening through being involved in building their future.

Helen is running the London Marathon this April, and has decided to raise money to support this charity’s inspiring vision and life-changing work.

Please give anything you can to support Helen and The Magpie Project here.

Sufra

Working with IVAR in support of the Propel funding programme, Richard was invited to facilitate a session with the team at Sufra, a charity in North West London that works to prevent hunger, fight poverty and build community in the borough of Brent.

The session explored Theory of Change which Sufra have used articulate the change that the charity wants to see in the world. It built on the many ways in which staff and volunteers are already gathering useful evaluation information, building on this good work to make things more part of everyday delivery.

Helping organisations to articulate their work, share their story and demonstrate their impact are important services so they can show the impact of their work and provide evidence for future funding.

Voice, Access and Inclusion training with IVAR

As a result of the Connecting Health Communities work that we do with research charity IVAR, we’ve been given a great opportunity to create and deliver some training on inclusive practices in social research for all of the IVAR staff and associates.

IVAR is currently involved in research and partnership development around health inequalities, including a focus on health inequalities around disability, and bringing lived experience to the forefront appropriately. To support them to prepare for that work, and to create space to consider more inclusive research practice in general, we’re facilitating a day’s training workshop.

Our team is Aideen, who has cerebral palsy; Ali, who works closely with people learning disabilities; Eddy, who identifies as neurodivergent and has done a lot of work around the intersectionality between neurodiversity and gender identity; and Helen who has a strong commitment to delivering access and inclusion through our work.

We’re making use of Ali’s theatre skills and involving Forum Theatre in the training to explore different scenarios and find creative ways to overcome barriers. Ali is also working with a group of people with learning disabilities to create a video of messages that they want to communicate at the training.

We are hoping this is something we may be able to offer other organisations in the future. If you are interested in tailored, practical training around inclusive practice, get in touch!

Local Trust and Big Local

As Big Local areas are coming to the end of their ten-year funding programme, we ran a bitesize online called ‘The Difference We Made’ commissioned by Local Trust. The aim was to help people think through how they can tell their story, in collaboration with the people they work with, and how best to communicate that story with their audience.

Several of the Big Locals that took part in our Reflect|Recharge sessions have asked us to give them follow-up support using the tools and approaches they found helpful. In some cases, we’re providing bespoke support and developing a vision and plan for a specific project. Recently, we worked with Big Local Selby to explore priorities for their Our Space community hub and potential funding to make the hub financially sustainable.

In Autumn 2024 we ran a community engagement event at Villages Together Big Local, to find out what local residents wanted from a community hub at Bitham Walk hall. As they were coming in and chatting, our associate Natalie was creating live artwork to reflect the conversations happening. She produced an amazing visual, which the community space now uses in its recruitment, to show people what they’re all about. We like to leave something useful behind, whether it’s a skill, a relationship, an articulation of a vision, or a piece of artwork.

Covid-19 Inquiry – Every Story Matters

We’re coming to the end of our work on Module 9 of the UK Covid-19 inquiry listening exercise – Every Story Matters, working with Ipsos, in partnership with WSA Community. We’ve been looking at the economic impact of Covid-19 on small businesses, small VCSE organisations and individuals, with an engagement team headed up by our associate Jamie.

We’ve also been working closely with WSA Community on Module 10, which is about the impact of the pandemic on the general public. Together, we’re designing listening events for people who are bereaved, losing loved ones during the pandemic.

It’s a very tough subject, and we’ve done a lot of training on traumatic bereavement. We’ve facilitated three consultative workshops for families who are bereaved as a result of Covid-19, to give them a say in shaping the listening events we’re designing.

Between now and June, we will be travelling to places including Belfast, Cardiff, Glasgow, Sheffield and Brighton, to deliver ten half-day listening events to hear people’s stories. We will also be doing some targeted research to hear more stories to complement those that have come through the online portal set up by the UK Covid-19 Inquiry.

Developing Just Ideas

Lorien, who has been working with us as an intern, has been helping to organise all of our workshop resources. The aim is for us to take a more systematic approach to planning and delivering team-building and evaluation workshops in future. We’re really excited about developing workshop packages that we can offer to even more organisations.

Our associate Erica is looking at the steps we need to go through in designing projects and workshops, to make sure inclusion, diversity, and environmental sustainability are considered at every point. As we’re developing inclusive practices training for IVAR, we’re also thinking about how we build a framework to make sure we incorporate this in all the projects we work on.

Another of our associates, Jamie, has been working with us on organising and systematising our tendering process, and that working relationship has been very positive.

Just Ideas Collaborative

We’re looking forward to getting together for another of our Just Ideas Collaborative gatherings in June. You can find out more about the Just Ideas Collaborative here.

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Work with us

If you’d like to find out more about working together, or talk about partnering with us, please do contact us here. We’d love to hear from you.

We look forward to updating you on our progress again, later in the year.

Richard, Helen, Mary, Mike and the Just Ideas Collaborative.