Organisation: The Government Outcomes Lab
Public policy and management have seen a push for re-focusing on the involvement of service users and community groups in the design and implementation of services and policies in recent years. The underpinning notion is to mitigate structural power imbalances by giving a voice to the people most affected. This shall enhance the user-centredness of the service/policy and improve its social outcomes.
Looking at international and national case studies, the focus of this session was three-fold:
The third session, chaired by Vanessa Lefton (Policy Lab UK), saw panelists look at participatory research involving marginalised groups, participatory practices in service commissioning and implementation, and knowledge transfer and learning between frontline organisations and policy-makers. Victoria Busby and Michael People of the Kirklees Better Outcomes Partnership shared their experiences integrating lived experiences of users into intervention design. Patsy Kraeger shared insights on participatory practices in place-based interventions to meet community needs. Mohammed Hassan of the Refugee Led Research Hub shared their work which seeks to foster a meaningful contribution to research from people with lived experiences. Sharing lessons from homelessness research, Gary Painter explained that social innovation processes are iterative processes, that introduce co-production as a source of innovation. The session concluded that integrating participatory approaches enriches delivery.