Community engagement

Keep scrolling down this page to get up to speed with HVM's community engagement projects, or click on Our Reports to go HVM's published reports. We begin with our current projects before summarising previous community engagement programmes.

HVM’s involvement in the Spectrum 10K Consultation

In October 2021 Hopkins Van Mil (HVM) was commissioned in a procurement process run by the the Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge to work on the Spectrum 10K consultation. This is a large-scale and diverse programme of engagement with the autistic community. HVM’s role is to work as independent and impartial facilitators to listen to and explore the perspectives of the autism community to find constructive ways forward. The Spectrum 10K team will use the findings from the consultation to inform and adapt the Spectrum 10K research project.

We are doing this work because we believe the perspectives of the autistic community are essential when considering how to improve the Spectrum 10K research project.

About the Spectrum 10K Consultation

The consultation is in three parts:

Phase 1 - completed March 22

Phase 1 was carried out between December 2021 and February 2022. Its purpose was to seek opinions about who should be involved in Phase 2, the co-design of the consultation. In total, 29 people engaged in Phase 1, plus the Spectrum 10K team. 23 were autistic and 6 were non-autistic parents/carers, clinicians or charity representatives.

One of the outcomes of Phase 1 was that an autistic person should have a leading role in the consultation. That has been done now and the timeline for the remaining two phases has been adjusted because of that. You can read about the co-lead Leneh Buckle here.

Phase 2 – Co-design completed October 2022, report published December 2022

Phase 2 was focused on co-designing the consultation. We recruited participants for this phase in line with what participants in Phase 1 said they would like. We involved 111 people in designing the consultation, most (85%) are autistic people, with some parents/carers and family members of autistic people.

This phase aimed to answer questions like:

  • What questions should the consultation ask to help improve the Spectrum 10K study?

  • What information should be shared in the consultation to help people respond?

  • How should the consultation gather responses so that everyone in the autism community is able to take part?

There were three main types of activities:

  1. A series of four online workshops (up to 24 participants in small group discussions of 6) took place on Zoom. Participants were able to participate by speaking, in text, or a combination of both.

  2. One to One Interviews (8 participants) were conducted by telephone, video chat or text chat.

  3. Online activities (79 participants) which included a variety of methods such as surveys and open questions.

The executive summary of the Phase 2 report is available here and the summary of the report here. An Easy Read version is available here.

Phase 3 – January-May 2023

This phase is about running the consultation. It focused on gathering views on how the Spectrum 10K study should be improved. It was open to everyone in the autistic community to take part if they wished.

From November work was done to plan the detailed consultation process.

  • At the same time the consultation was publicised so that all those who wished to take part could do so in the way that best suits them.

  • To give the planning and publicity phase appropriate time, the consultation itself took take place from March to the end of May 2023.

For further information, please email consultation@hopkinsvanmil.co.uk.

 
 

Wac Arts: engaging communities with heritage

HVM was commissioned by the young people performing arts charity Wac Arts to support the development of a heritage and community engagement plan. We designed and conducted depth stakeholder and user interviews, community focus groups and workshops for trustees, staff and volunteers exploring the concept of Wac Arts' heritage and the heritage of its home The Old Town Hall in Camden. To realise Chief Executive Karen Napier's vision of 'turning the building inside out,' it is Wac Arts' ambition to collect as many (hi)stories through archival and oral history research to celebrate Wac Arts' and The Old Town Hall as a community of place and change-makers. Karen Napier thanked HVM for,

“Instigating heritage engagement fever amongst staff and volunteers, who now see the benefits and joy of engaging young people, their families and our wider community in discussions about our shared heritage.”

Cuckmere Estuary: research & engagement programme for flood risk management

HVM designed and delivered a significant three year programme of research, engagement and participation on flood risk management for the Cuckmere Estuary in East Sussex. Working with East Sussex County Council, the Environment Agency, National Trust and a number of community groups, supported as a DEFRA Pathfinder project, HVM sought to give everyone a voice on an issue of great concern to the local community and economy.  Using a variety of techniques including large-scale consensus building events, small scale specialist workshops and on-street consultation HVM enabled the community to agree a process of long-term management for this iconic landscape.

Hampshire County Council: coastal communities adapting to change (CCATCH-Solent)

Managed by Resources for Change, HVM worked with Hampshire County Council to support communities in the Solent, using a range of engagement and research techniques, including face-to-face depth interviews, community workshops and pop-up engagement events to consider how to effect the change necessary in their area to mitigate local flood risk. The project formed part of a larger European funded project led by the Environment Agency titled ‘Coastal Communities 2150 and Beyond’ (CC2150).

South Downs National Park Authority

In a major social research and community engagement exercise, a series of 9 workshops, informed by a survey and depth interviews, was held across the three counties of the South Downs National Park, Hampshire, West Sussex and East Sussex for the South Downs National Park Authority from 2011-2013.  With over 400 participants the workshops produced a wealth of evidence on the aspirations people had for the future of the National Park. This integrated body of evidence, along with national policy and drivers, has informed the vision and objectives of the National Park Management Plan and the Local Development Framework. Andrew Lee, Director of Strategy and Policy at the South Downs National Park Authority said,

“Anita and Henrietta are positive, responsive, but also very clear in their advice about what will and won’t work being prepared to take risks to test evidence in interesting ways! I’d definitely use HVM again.”