This seminar, run with GlobalNet21, will consider how the digital age has enhanced communication so that listening can be pro active and two-way. It will look at engagement and how local authorities can use both online and offline engagement to achieve practical results.
Effective commissioning and service delivery requires real engagement between councils and the communities and front line workers involved in using and delivering services. This seminar, with a keynote address from Helen Jones MP, Shadow Local Government Minister, will examine the importance of listening and qualitative feedback. We will look at some innovative projects that utilise cloud sourcing, mobile phones and video diaries as well as conventional face to face meetings to help give a voice to marginalised and vulnerable groups and provide instant contact between front line workers and managers.
Programme
12:30 Coffee and registration
13:00 Introduction to seminar; Francis Sealey, GlobalNet21 and Alan Waters, Learning and Development Manager, LGiU
13:10 Changing Our Culture: the importance of listening; keynote address Helen Jones MP, Shadow Local Government Minister
13:25 Questions to Helen Jones MP
13:45 Listening – both online and off; Cllr Bambos Charalambous on how a conventional forum can be created for active listening based on his experience of working with homeless people; and Anthony Carpen an advisor to government and local authorities will illustrate how social media can be used to influence central and local government committees
14:15 Questions and discussion
14:30 Coffee
14:45 Introduction to case studies; Francis Sealey
14:50 Case study: Peter Thomond, Clever Together, about an online tool that crowd sources employee or community opinion
15:10 Case study: Vicki Fitzgerald of Gateway Family Services on a phone app that empowers front line workers and allows instant feedback to managers and decision makers
15:30 Questions and discussion
15:50 Digital listening; Sergio Lopez Figueroa, Big Bang Lab on the value of digital tools to enable active listening and offer a forum to marginalised voices
16:10 Questions
16:25 Feedback
16:45 Close
This programme is correct at the time of publication but maybe altered to reflect speaker changes that are beyond our control
