Who we serve and how they speak
Audience, advocacy, voice and deliberation.
Half a day exploring who you serve and how they speak: customer insight, trust, the engagement continuum, lawful consultation, deliberation and digital engagement.
- Level
- Explore
- Learning time
- 6 hours
- Where
- Engagement and Participation
- Price
- £129
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Read the full terms
Certificate of Completion, or Certificate of Completion and Assessment with a short assessment
Overview and Outcomes.
Who It's For
Public service leaders responsible for engagement and consultation
Overview
Before any engagement method comes a harder question: who are we serving, and how do they make their voices heard? This programme works from Hirschman's exit, voice and loyalty and John Alford's public service roles, through customer insight, journey mapping and failure demand, to communication, trust and the engagement continuum of Arnstein and IAP2. It then widens to the formal and inclusive routes for voice: consultation law and the Gunning principles, reaching seldom heard groups and children, deliberative methods such as citizens' assemblies, and the promise and risks of digital engagement and AI.
Aims
The aim is to help leaders understand the people they serve in depth and open the right channels for them to speak, building the judgement to communicate in ways that earn trust, consult lawfully and fairly, include those seldom heard, and choose between consultation, deliberation and digital approaches with integrity.
In summary, you will be able to:
- Explain how roles, insight, trust and silence shape the relationship between public services and the people they serve, drawing on Hirschman, Alford and journey mapping.
- Plan a consultation or engagement exercise that meets the Gunning principles, reaches seldom heard groups and uses digital and AI tools with appropriate guard rails.
- Assess which level of engagement, from informing to deliberation, fits a real decision, and write an honest promise about what people can influence.
What you'll develop
Across this Explore, you will develop the ability to:
- Distinguish inform, consult, involve, participate, co-design and co-production, and write an honest engagement promise for a piece of work.
- Build a journey map that charts stages, touchpoints, emotions and pain points, and use a service blueprint to trace front stage failures to back stage causes.
- Match a communication approach, from telling to dialogue, to the moment, and assess a standard letter against the five basics of good communication.
- Identify the triggers that can make consultation legally required and explain why a voluntary consultation must still be carried out properly.
- Explain why the seldom heard framing places responsibility on the organisation, and identify the practical, trust, cultural, digital, language and cost barriers to taking part.
- Assess what a digital channel adds to an engagement purpose and identify the layers of digital exclusion that a digital-only approach can create.
Built from 4 parts.
6 hours of learning.
- 01Knowing who you serveCustomer insight and community engagementBitesize3 modules
- 02From awareness to advocacyEngagement continuum, communication and trustBitesize2 modules
- 03Hearing every voicePublic consultation law and inclusive engagementBitesize2 modules
- 04Deciding togetherDeliberative democracy and digital engagementBitesize2 modules
Keep going.
Part of the Engagement and Participation topic, also sold whole as Nothing about us without us.
Go deeper, and pay only the difference
- You are hereExplore, 6 hours, £129
- The whole topicImmerse, Nothing about us without us, 11 hours, £249. Already own the Explore? You pay £120.
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Prices per person. Read the full terms