Voice

What is it?

Voice is a discussion based tool for community groups and networks to assess and improve the influence they have on agencies and partnerships. It is appropriate for small, large, newly formed and well established groups, as well as those with paid and unpaid members.

It is designed to help you to:

determine your current position of influence

consider how you can become more influential

Voice was developed in Dudley Borough, with Dosti member networks, and is now used in many other parts of the country and even internationally!

Read more about using voice here.

What work with voice is happening in Dudley Borough?

A number of Dosti’s member networks have been using Voice to develop their capacity to influence by participating in a series of facilitated sessions.

Action for Disabled People and Carers (ADC) were involved in piloting Voice in 2007, and have since revisited their resulting actions once in 2008 and developed new actions. They are due to revisit Voice again in autumn 2009. When they first used Voice they told us:

“Voice opened our eyes and helped us to focus on where we are,
where we have been, where we want to go.”

Voice helped ADC to developed actions to agree their purpose and vision, recognise and celebrate their successes, demand feedback from public agencies who consulted them and identify themes to focus their influence on.

engAGING, a network of older people’s groups started using Voice in 2008 and are using it further in 2009. Voice helped the network to identify actions around their organization and involvement of members, and bringing members together to agree what they want to influence.

Castle and Priory Area Regeneration Board members participated in a series of Voice sessions in spring 2008, and used the issues this raised to inform their action planning at an away day in late 2008. A member of the Board told us that:

“We are organised pretty well but we all feel the same level of frustration
of what is being achieved. Voice has helped us to see that we are more effective
than we first might have thought.”

Working with Voice encouraged the Board to consider how others view them, who helps and who hinders their work, and they developed a communication plan.

Representatives of the Children, Young People and Families Network have been using Voice to great effect, and have a number of resulting actions in progress around identification of a limited number of issues to focus on over the next year, increasing the engagement of groups in the network. Developing representation and increasing understanding of Dudley Children’s Trust.

Shell Corner Partnership were introduced to Voice at their AGM in late 2008 and have since participated in two Voice workshops. One of their Board members said that:

“Voice helped me to see that we are more organised and influential
than we give ourselves credit for.”

Following the second Voice session the Partnership has decided to promote their stance on equalities, develop a wider, more diverse representation, revise their Board membership rules and to recognise and celebrate their achievements more.

A number of other local networks of groups have been introduced to Voice by attending introductory sessions. These include Dudley Volunteer Organisers Network, Community Associations, Dudley Federation of Tenants and Residents Associations, North Dudley Neighbourhood Watch Association, Brierley Hill Community Forum and Dudley Voices for Choice.

Dosti’s Executive is also using Voice to assess their capacity to influence and degree of influence.

Where did Voice come from?

In September 2005 Dosti commissioned Community Development experts, Changes to find out what makes networks influential.

Voice was developed over one and a half years with a range of community networks in Dudley. Members of networks were interviewed, took part in workshops and a series of action learning sessions to:

talk about influence – what it means and how it happens

contribute to, and comment on the detail of Voice

test Voice out

make changes

put Voice into practice

Interviews were also carried out with people from statutory sector agencies to get a fuller picture of how influence happens.

Three community networks in Dudley borough agreed to test out Voice in the early stages. Since then, Voice has been used by different groups around the country, including community anchors, residents associations, neighbourhood management projects and police consultative groups.

Why should I be interested?

Voice was developed in Dudley, with people involved in community-based networks. It is based on community empowerment principles and is proven as a very helpful planning and evaluation tool.

Dosti staff are trained to facilitate Voice sessions for local networks, and you can access this support free of charge if you are involved in a Dosti network.

If you are from a public sector agency then may find Voice a helpful tool in working with community groups to draw out and address some of the problems that groups and networks face. Voice also contributes to work towards the Duty to Involve, and some National Indicators (NIs), in particular

NI1 - percentage of people who believe people from different backgrounds

get on well together in their local area

NI4 – percentage of local residents who feel they can influence decisions in their locality

NI7 – environment for a thriving third sector

How can I find out more?

Dosti will post updates of work with Voice on our Voice blog page.

You can subscribe to our e-news and/or partner e-news and have Voice news and updates delivered straight to your inbox!

From changes website you can also download a 2 page information leaflet about Voice, a Handy Guide which introduces Voice and it’s use, and a Toolkit to aid facilitation of Voice. [link to http://changesuk.net/resources/axis-of-influence-series-voice-and-echo/]
Here you can download articles about Voice which begin from it’s early development, when it was called the Axis of Influence:

FCDL newsletter, December 2006, article by Lorna Prescott

CDX News, April 07, article by Sal Hampson

Community Development Journal, September 2007, article by Jill Bedford

NCVO magazine, June 2008, article by Robert Bullard

Oxfam GenderWorks, October 2008

Urban Forum Insight Case Study (online), February 2009, written by Lorna Prescott

Please email or call Lorna Prescott at Dosti if you are interested in using voice
(contact details at the bottom of this page)

How does voice contribute to Dosti’s action plan?

Dosti's Aims	Ways That Using Voice Contributes
1. To create opportunities for the voluntary, community and faith sector to collectively influence strategic decision making.	voice encourages community-based networks to discuss how influential they feel and how they can improve their capacity to influence.
2. To engage and enable sector representation and influence in public sector partnerships.	Voice is a useful tool for representatives, and helps networks to think about representation.
3. To support and develop an empowering engagement process.	The dimensions of community empowerment are built in to the voice framework.
4. To facilitate the engagement of under-represented groups.	Voice encourages community-based networks to think about inclusion and working in ways which recognizes that discrimination exists, challenging inequality and exclusion.