Facilitation
Our expert facilitation helps you, your people or your community to make things to happen.
We shape and hold a space that enables collaborative reflection and planning, allows ideas to flow and encourages action to flow from those ideas. We specialise in bespoke approaches that are engaging, participatory and creative, making sure that everyone feels comfortable to contribute in a way that suits them.
Co-design
There is growing recognition that the best designs and plans come about when the people who will be using them are involved in designing them. We have used this approach for many years, co-designing training courses and events, evaluation frameworks and services.
The Magpie Project
Working with The Magpie Project, an inspiring charity supporting mums and under-fives in temporary housing with unresolved immigration status, was one of our highlights of 2024. We designed and facilitated listening events that created a space for mums to share their lived experiences with professionals on equal footing, fostering understanding and mutual respect.
From these, we produced detailed reports that led to a second phase of co-design workshops, where mums and professionals collaboratively developed practical tools, materials, and programmes to improve early years support services. Our facilitation enabled trust to grow and conversations to deepen, leading to new workstreams that reimagine access pathways for families.
As a result of our work together, Newham Council’s public health team is now an active partner in the next stage of development, helping shape better services from the ground up and supporting meaningful relationships that drive change.
Helen, Shae and Mary’s diligent and detailed listening, preparation, and framing before and between sessions, brought a sense of safety, fun, acceptance which empowered our families to voice their concerns without fear, meaning that the depth and breadth of conversations we captured was far richer than we could ever have wished… The quality and compelling nature of Just Ideas’ framing and reporting made it possible for the public health team to come on board with the next stage of our project – the mapping of services.
UCL: Co-design of Centre for Co-Production’s evaluation framework
The UCL Centre for Co-production in Health Research exists to support health professionals, researchers and patients interested in working together to unlock new ways of addressing long-standing health issues.
Since its inception in 2018 the Centre has been co-created from the start by the people it supports, 50 of whom worked with Just Ideas over several workshops, meetings and conversations to co-create an evaluation framework that would help them reflect on their progress during the early days of the Centre’s development.
With the help of Just Ideas and the experiences of our Phase 1 Pilot projects, we have a lot of learning about how to co-produce – what really helps, what can be difficult, how to facilitate decision-making, and much more.
Training delivery
Our training is designed and delivered by skilled facilitators, to bring out the expertise of participants in the room alongside our own expertise. We develop bespoke training for your organisation that meets your precise audience and needs. We’ve delivered tailored training on:
- facilitation skills – from starting out in facilitation to advanced level
- volunteer recruitment and management
- community engagement approaches and strategy
- NHS patient and public voice training
- doing meetings differently
- evaluating and measuring change in projects and programmes
- effective hybrid working
- making sure equity, diversity and inclusion are at the centre of your work
Inclusive Practice in Action: Training with IVAR
The research team at the Institute for Voluntary Action Research (IVAR) were keen to ensure that their working practices were as inclusive as possible and asked us to put together some training with a particular focus on involving disabled people in research.
Our associate team of expert facilitators brought their experience of disability, neurodivergence and creative methods to a stimulating session exploring improving practice and policy. Through a range of approaches including forum theatre and live graphic reporting participants were able to explore topics such as our understanding of disability, the impact of legislation and consideration of reasonable adjustments, intersectionality and how inclusion benefits everyone. A key take away was the mantra: Ask, Listen, Do!
The session was enjoyable and engaging… I especially appreciated the interactive approach, which encouraged me to think critically about applying the training in everyday practice. The team created a safe and supportive space for learning and open discussion which made it easy for our team to ask questions and explore sensitive topics with confidence. We plan to use the learning to further our commitment to inclusive research, including reviewing the accessibility of our research communications and being more creative with our methodologies.
Away days and team building
Whether you need us to plan an away-day for staff, volunteers or trustees, or a session that forms part of a wider support offer, we can design something with and for you that helps you move things on. We can focus on generating a plan of action around a specific issue, or on creating a good team culture and ways of working. We bring our engaging, participatory facilitation style, and a range of activities to suit all learning styles, making sure the hard work gets done in a way that is enjoyable and creative.
Help on Your Doorstep Away Days
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 two away day sessions. The first day was to bring their teams together, recognise achievements and share their understanding of current context for their work. The second session focused on how teams could understand each other’s priorities and support each other to achieve their aims.
We tried out a new approach to visualising interconnecting needs and priorities, creating a huge grid on paper on the wall. This resulted in ‘collaboration contracts’ between HOYD’s teams – 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 reaching a range of audiences to raise funds for their work.
I want to keep the energy outside this room! I found the collaboration contract activity really useful, working out how to get things done; understanding each other’s needs and improving our information sharing.
Learning events
These usually form a key part of our learning partner and evaluation work and are often integrated into our research approach. We value bringing people together to share learning, develop understanding and think about what happens next. We specialise in cross-sector, or cross-boundary events, bringing together people with different perspectives to share their experience and develop responses to challenging issues.
Community responses to the cost of living crisis – CaVCA
Cavca (Coast and Vale Community Action) is a social enterprise that exists to help communities thrive along the North Yorkshire Coast. Their ‘Finding our Voice’ conference in November 2022 aimed to create a safe and supportive environment to stimulate open and honest discussion about the issues and challenges that people in communities were facing.
Working alongside CaVCA, Just Ideas facilitated an Open Space event at their Scarborough venue to explore issues such as the impact of the cost of living crisis and access to services. The aim was to bring community experience to bear in tackling and responding to these issues locally. Helen – Director of Just Ideas – reflected: “It was inspiring to hear the voices of volunteers and activists joining together with leaders of organisations and networks to get to know each other, pool expertise and build solutions to the things that really matter to people.”
It was a great event, some really interesting (and sometimes surprising) stuff came out of it – plenty of material to work with moving forward. We loved working with you … hopefully we will again, many times.