Community Reporting - capturing and valuing our shared stories
Rooted in the Five Foundations of Our Shared Agreement, we are working to create an online library of ‘Our Shared Stories’.
The It’s All About People team and Lincolnshire Voluntary Engagement Team (LVET) are working in partnership with the national charity, People’s Voice Media, to bring Community Reporting to Lincolnshire.
We’re working with partners across health, social care, faith, and community sectors to share skills in lived experience storytelling and create a library of people’s experience to help inform the development of health and care in Lincolnshire.
Community reporting is a grassroots media model that helps people share their stories and perspectives to drive social change.
The Lincolnshire project approach involves:
- Recruiting a group of people from different sectors to become Community Reporting Trainers
- Gathering stories
- Analysing stories – what themes and learning points emerge?
- Developing a searchable online ‘library’ of stories
- Holding ‘knowledge sharing’ events and creating reports for system leaders and research partners to share the findings and influence future development
- Sharing the skills to train more people as Community Reporters across Lincolnshire
Our Partners
The first phase of the project involves people from a range of care, community and health settings:
- Carers First
- Churches Together in All Lincolnshire (CTAL) / Lincoln Street Pastors
- East Lindsey District Council
- Every-One
- Green Synergy
- Health Inequalities Engagement, NHS Lincolnshire ICB
- Lincolnshire Action Trust
- Lincolnshire County Council – Day Care
- Lincolnshire Maternity and Neonatal Programme, NHS Lincolnshire ICB
- Lincolnshire Voluntary Engagement Team (LVET)
- Living with Cancer Programme, NHS Lincolnshire ICB
- One You Lincolnshire
Our first Community Reporting cohort exploring 'Conversations about wellbeing' at day one of training, February 2025
What does a Community Reporter do?
Community Reporters:
- Gather stories: Using a diverse range of insight storytelling techniques, People’s Voice Media support Community Reporters to use digital devices and the internet to gather and share their own (and their peers') stories of lived experience.
- Curate stories: Working with People’s Voice Media, Community Reporters analyse stories to identify insights and package them in a range of ways such as edited films, interactive reports, visualisations and much more.
- Mobilise stories: People’s Voice Media support Community Reporters to connect curated stories to decision-makers and change-makers, who can use the insights to create positive change. This could include evaluating and improving services, supporting co-design, informing strategic development, and much more.
Community Reporting provides opportunities for people to use storytelling to:
- Find their voice: Through storytelling, we can have our say on topics pertinent to our lives.
- Challenge perceptions: Through listening to different experiences than our own, our understanding of the world can widen.
- Be catalysts of change: Through taking responsibility to act on what we have learned from other people’s experiences we can be part of positive social change.
At the core of Community Reporting lies the belief that every voice has value.
I'm interested! Can I join Lincolnshire’s new network of Community Reporters?
Soon! In Autumn 2025, our first group of trainers will be fully trained and ready to deliver Community Reporting workshops.
Lincolnshire Community Reporting Project - Key dates
25 - 26 February 2025: Community Reporter training - COMPLETED
2 - 3 April 2025: Story Curation / sense-making workshops
18 June 2025: ‘Conversation of Change’ – knowledge exchange event to share initial findings and explore actions
4 - 25 September 2025: Community Reporting Train the Trainer
Want to know more?
View the 'Our Shared Stories' project briefing session slide deck below:
Our Shared Stories Presentation
And if you need more information, or have any questions, contact Caty Collier at caty.collier@lvet.org or phone / text: 07888 321090
Find out more about Community Reporting
Visit https://peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk/approach/ for more information about the Community Reporting approach.
