CPD -Participatory Research Methods for the VCSE sector in Devon

Date: 27th January 2025

Time: 10am-4pm

Location: University of Exeter - Streatham Campus - The Deck

Do you work in the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector for a group or organisation that runs activities or services for locals in Devon?

Has your group or organisation grappled with the challenges of capturing and demonstrating the full impact of its activities and services?

Do you think your group or organisation can benefit from using creative ways to understand the wider impacts of its activities or services?

If the answer to the three questions above is yes, then you might be interested in a day-long (10am-4pm) course that the University of Exeter is running on Participatory Research Methods. The course is commissioned by the Torbay Plymouth and Devon VCSE Assembly, through its Research Community of Practice, and funded by the NHS’s Research Engagement Network and is free to participants from across Devon.

Participatory Research Methods are designed to understand how people and communities feel about certain activities and what influences those activities have on day-to-day life. If designed well, such methods can provide learning around (very) local influences and the specific relationships that develop due to an activity or service. Often, these unique influences and relationships are what make things work locally. Participatory Research Methods can therefore help organisations better understand how and why their activities benefit people and communities, and can help them continue to adapt and improve what they offer.

University of Exeter’s course on Participatory Research Methods will be co-ordinated by Shuks Esmene. Over the past 8 years, Shuks has worked with many VCSEs to co-design a variety of creative Participatory Research Methods that supported the evaluation of their activities.

The course will cover the basic principles of Participatory Research Methods. During a suite of practical sessions, learners will be able to raise the challenges that they have encountered and continue to encounter around evaluating activities and services (including for internal learning purposes). We will work on these challenges by drawing on methods that were co-designed with VCSEs in past projects.

Overall, the course will provide a clear picture of how participants can design and apply Participatory Research Methods and how the findings that emerge from them can be reported. The course is aimed at those who have some experience of evaluating or learning from their organisation’s activity, but no specific skills or expertise are necessary.

An introductory welcome session (half-an-hour) will be held on 16th January 2025 (online). Links will be available for this session after you sign up to the course via Eventbrite.

Additionally, a two-hour online follow-up session will be organised (expected for Spring 2025). The purpose of the follow-up session will be to reflect on the course’s content and discuss how learners have used the content – including any challenges that you may have encountered in applying Participatory Research Methods. Attendance to this session will be optional.

The course is free for voluntary sector workers across Devon - including Plymouth and Torbay. Though, in order to ensure wide benefit, we are limiting participation to one person per organisation

If you have any queries, please contact Shuks Esmene ([email protected])

Host or Publisher Mistralle Reid