PACC Mapping encourages a diversity of perspectives in the stakeholders who participate. It fosters more equitable solutions to gaps in care through the use of personas that highlight various needs.
As a facilitator, it is important that you embrace this and bring it into your own process.
As part of the prep stage, there are several ways to invite in diverse voices from the community.
How?
First, seek to understand where the barriers are in the community.
Second, strongly encourage that specific organizations / communities participate in the Mapping workshop. Where participation in the workshop is not possible, consider engaging directly with these stakeholders in the prep stage to hear more about the barriers they experience. Be sure that what you learn is incorporated into the planning, and ultimately into the Mapping stage.
Third, select or adapt personas so they reflect the barriers. This will trigger the necessary conversations.
The prep stage is certainly the foundation for a successful workshop, but creating a welcoming and safe space to collaborate and share ideas is absolutely central to the facilitator role.
We encourage facilitators to ensure they bring all voices into the workshop space in a thoughtful and intentional way.
Facilitator training often suggests setting ground rules such as "equal air time" and brainstorming rules like "no bad ideas". Both of these are good to get people talking. Equitable air time might be better - this way you are giving more space for the voices at the table with lived experience or who speak to the barriers directly, so that others can better understand the local issues.
Sometimes on a video conference (like on Zoom) it is easy for people to not be so engaged, so it is especially important as a facilitator to watch for the contributions of all the participants and create space for everyone. Further to this, you can encourage multiple ways to contribute in the session. We have found encouraging use of the chat feature can be very helpful for some people. One of the facilitators can read out and capture the ideas shared in the chat, inviting the person to speak as well. There is information in the facilitator roles page on how to help bring chat contributions into the general conversation.
Closing the workshop with intention is just as important as opening it. We suggest setting aside time to mindfully close the session. Thank participants for their time, their willingness to share and contribute, and their commitment to shared action going forward.
When writing the report, describe the solutions in community-first language. For example: