Group activities
Last updated
Was this helpful?
Last updated
Was this helpful?
We organised group activities at two key points in the evaluation process. These sessions brought together care workers, people receiving support, family and friends, volunteers, community members, and local partner organisations. The aim was to ensure that participants helped shape what was measured - and how - and had a chance to reflect collectively on what had been learned.
In May 2023, we held a participatory workshop to map out our Theory of Change. Participants included care receivers, their families and friends, Equal Care workers, local volunteers, community members, and partner organisations.
Rich picture mapping: People visually mapped the current care system: who’s involved, what’s working, and where the challenges are.
Identifying change: Participants shared what changes they’d like to see in care: more flexibility, stronger relationships, and better support were recurring themes.
Causal pathways: Small groups worked on linking actions to outcomes, describing how specific activities could lead to real improvements.
Feedback and synthesis: We refined the causal pathways collectively, shaping a shared Theory of Change that guided our entire evaluation.
It brought a wide range of voices into the design of the evaluation.
It helped ensure that what we measured truly reflected what mattered to people.
It fostered shared ownership and trust: the evaluation wasn’t something “done to” people, but built with them.
It laid out a roadmap that made it easier for everyone to see how their contributions connected to broader outcomes.
This was not the first time we’d co-produced a Theory of Change. In 2019, we mapped our model around Platform, Circles, and Teams. In this session, we focused on the often invisible role of the wider community - the relationships and networks that help sustain care. This work helped to establish a fourth core dimension in our model: the Commons.
In July 2024, we ran a half-day workshop at Liberty Hall with Circle Members: care workers, care owners, and local coordinators. This session was designed to help people reflect together on their experience of the project, explore how they felt about it, and share their hopes for the future.
Making flower hats: Using flowers from Walthamstow Marshes, we made wearable ‘hats’ that became metaphors for our roles in the project. Everyone took a turn describing their role, responsibilities, and how they had changed.
Flower / Thorn / Bud: A group reflection exercise where people shared one thing that had gone well (flower), one challenge (thorn), and one hope (bud).
Cooking and eating together: We made pavlova and shared a meal - because connection and care also happen around food.
Washing line priorities: Participants hung hand-drawn "clothing" items on a line strung between trees, each representing a different factor (e.g. “I feel optimistic” or “We make decisions effectively”). Together, they arranged these in order of importance.
Sharing power
For a project grounded in co-production, it was vital that the evaluation process reflected those same values. Group activities helped shift power by involving people directly in deciding what should be measured and how the findings were interpreted.
Building trust and understanding
While interviews gave us deep individual stories, group workshops helped build a shared understanding. They allowed people to hear different perspectives, reflect together, and feel more connected to each other and the project.
Making evaluation relational
Rather than treating evaluation as extractive, we aimed to make it social and reciprocal. By returning to people with early findings, and offering space for response and discussion, we made the process more transparent and meaningful.
