Informal community assets and co-production for ‘Random Acts of Connection’

Using informal community assets and co-production approaches to engage and capture insight from seldom heard voices: Making the most of your ‘Random Acts of Connection’ with people in the community – learning from the Good Practice Mentors .

This year’s Loneliness Awareness week is running under the theme ‘Random Acts of Connection’, exploring how connecting with people in everyday, ordinary ways can reduce feelings of loneliness and increase our sense of belonging. The Good Practice Mentors know that to find those people who are most at risk of loneliness, you need to use practical, informal outreach and coproduction-based approaches. By creating opportunities and encouraging older people in the community to engage in these moments of connection, you are more likely to meet and hear from those people who are least likely to engage in formal consultation or group spaces.

During this one off workshop, we’ll share practical outreach and coproduction approaches, to help you to find, engage and capture insight from harder to reach older people in your community.

The session will cover:

· An introduction to informal outreach approaches to finding and engaging people out in the community
· How using street outreach for ‘social action research’ can help you to capture insight through informal conversations and environments
· A practical asset mapping exercise – helping you to think about opportunities to find and engage older people via informal ‘bumping spaces’ – the places people visit during their everyday lives
· Time to think – Using listening and thinking approaches to hold spaces for connection
· Information about further training and support from the Good Practice Mentor team around finding, engaging, capturing insight and coproduction with the older people you would like to meet