Community Reporting Hackathon: The 6th Annual Community Reporter Conference

People’s stories help us to make sense of our world. They help us to see things from different perspectives and to understand society. Recently, there has been an increased interest in working with lived experience stories as data, and an openness to co-production techniques. Stories can bring different voices into research and decision-making arenas. They can enable people with lived experience to influence research agendas and findings, and shift power dynamics. However, we shouldn't think of this as a perfect solution. Whilst such work can be ‘empowering’, it can also make existing problems worse such as reinforcing systemic issues, further marginalising voices, and re-traumatising people. It is crucial to think carefully and be ready to question and improve these methods.

This Community Reporting hackathon - - will tackle these complex issues. The event will bring together experts working with lived experience in research from academia, policy and practice - including experts-by-experience. Using the interactive and participatory format of a , we will examine how Community Reporting and other methods of lived experience storytelling can be made more inclusive and equitable.

Specifically, we want to make these methods:

• Accessible for people who don’t communicate using spoken word
• Suitable for people who are neurodivergent
• Actively anti-racist in techniques and delivery

Join us for an exciting day of mutual learning, and build connections with other practitioners in this area!

ABOUT THE EVENT

This IN-PERSON ONLY event will be a series of participatory activities that aim to work with the knowledge and expertise in the room to innovate lived experience storytelling methods.

The activities will:

• Explore the pros and cons of existing approaches
• Generate ideas about how existing methods can be adapted
• Hold space for discussions about new or merged approaches
• Examine barriers to change and how they can be overcome
• Create a future of inclusive practice - through planning how to take our ideas forward

At different points throughout the day, there’ll be some showcasing of projects from across the Community Reporter network - including a screening of an animation produced on the HOME? Heritage Lottery funded project. There’ll also be time for you to meet and connect with other attendees, and hopefully spawn some new collaborations. A full agenda will be sent out to registered attendees in April 2024. After the event, we will create and publicly share the resources made from ideas shared at the event.

Sounds up your street? Then get signed-up now as places are limited.

HOW TO PREPARE FOR THE EVENT

To help people get ready for the hackathon, we are hosting two ‘Introduction to Community Reporting’ sessions in April 2024. These 1-hour, online sessions will provide an introduction to Community Reporting as a method of digital storytelling and give you a chance to meet Laura and Isaac who will be part of the event’s hosting team. The two options are:

• 1:30pm - 2:30pm, Thursday April 11th 2024
• 10am - 11am, Wednesday April 17th 2024

On the registration form, you’ll have the opportunity to select which one you’d like to attend and further details will be sent to you.

We've also popped a few questions on the registration form about your know-how and thoughts about lived experience storytelling that we will incorporate into the hackathon. If you can, please do take the time to complete these optional contributions. You don't need to give super-long answers, but a few thoughts and ideas would be appreciated!

We will also send out a video and information about Community Reporting in April 2024 that you can watch/read through before the event. This should help frame the activities and help you (and us!) to get the most out of the day.

Find out more about People's Voice Media and the Community Reporter network at: https://peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk and https://communityreporter.net

Host or Publisher People's Voice Media