REMIT (THE CHALLENGE)
Tobacco use continues to cause illness and death in Australia. People living in public housing are more likely to smoke and live with second or third-hand smoke impacts in their daily lives.
How can we help make it easier to be safe from tobacco use in our community?
SNAPSHOT
Process: Community panel (co-design and deliberative engagement)
MosaicLab’s role: Design and delivery of a two-and-a-half-day community panel and sense-making process
Host organisations: Quit Victoria and VicHealth
Recruitment: Sortition Foundation
Timeframe: October 2022 – December 2022
Participants: 16 panellists and 14 sense-making participants
Outputs: Report detailing the panel’s final, agreed solutions and a toolkit framework to support delivery
FAST FACTS
OVERVIEW
In 2022, Quit Victoria and VicHealth sponsored an engagement process to design a pilot program to reduce tobacco-related harm in public housing. The process involved two phases of engagement.
Phase 1: Residents’ Panel (October – November 2022)
The panel was comprised of randomly-selected public housing residents from the City of Yarra. It was recruited to support, as much as possible, a demographic match to public housing residents in the area. MosaicLab worked with the Sortition Foundation who managed the recruitment process for the panel via random, stratified selection.
The panel included people from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds, ages, genders, smoking status (current smoker, past smoker, non-smoker) and geographic locations (North Richmond, Collingwood and Fitzroy public housing estates).
The group met for five sessions. Their task was to:
define the problem of tobacco-related harm in public housing,
design and deliver kitchen table conversations with family, friends and residents to find out more information about the impacts
propose solutions to help make it easier to be safe from tobacco use in the community.
The panel agreed on three recommended solutions that formed the basis of the Residents’ Panel report that was presented to Quit Victoria on 19 November 2022.
Phase 2: Sense-making (November – December 2022)
In December 2022, six panel members were joined by eight health and community sector stakeholders and Quit Victoria for two sense-making workshops.
The sense-making group helped to develop the panel’s solutions into a practical toolkit. A framework for the toolkit was developed from the sessions that will support the health and community sector to implement their own program to reduce tobacco harm in social and public housing.
CHALLENGES
Recruitment
Recruitment was based on a randomly-selected, stratified selection process. A total of 540 residents from City of Yarra public housing were randomly selected and sent an invitation.
It was identified early that response rates may be low. Different methods of invitation delivery were considered. However, the initial invitation did not yield a high volume of responses.
The opportunity was then opened up to any public housing resident and a renewed effort to promote the opportunity began. This brought in 36 expressions of interest, which was not a big enough number for random selection to take place.
All those who expressed interest were invited onto the panel, which removed the randomness from the selection process.
Barriers to engagement
Many of the residents faced potential obstacles to participation including language barriers, the need for childcare, and access or support requirements. These barriers were identified and worked through carefully to ensure the process was inclusive.
Participation support
The pace of the facilitation, accessibility of information inputs and adaption to diverse communication needs all required consideration. It was important to design a flexible process that could meet the needs of participants and ensure they could genuinely contribute to the process.
KEYS TO SUCCESS
Troubleshooting recruitment
Even though fewer than ideal expressions of interest were ultimately received, some key factors did help to recruit the 36 participants including:
promoting the opportunity through on-ground events
short, direct communication methods such as SMS
engaging local community leaders and advocates to assist in spreading the word
participation in the market at North Richmond Public Housing promoting the process
follow-up contact with those who had received an invitation
encouraging those with an invitation to register their interest
messages delivered through targeted channels such as a City of Yarra managed WhatsApp group for public housing residents.
Quit Victoria and MosaicLab worked hard throughout the sessions to minimise further drop off in attendance, which happens in almost all multi-session processes.
Quit Victoria brought in little gifts for the participants ranging from plants and chocolates through to a birthday cake for one the children who was at the venue. These personal touches made a difference and the group remained strong throughout, with 16 panel members seeing the process through to the end.
building connections
Taking the time to connect and the panel getting to know each other, Quit Victoria and MosaicLab was important. This established a supported environment with the sharing of personal experiences, learning more about other peoples’ situations and great conversations about the impacts of tobacco smoke for their community.
There were smokers, non-smokers and past smokers on the panel and they shared and talked openly, honestly and with no judgement; knowing that they want a safe, healthy and clean space to live.
Accessibility and inclusion
Quit Victoria worked closely with MosaicLab to minimise any obstacles to participation. This included:
bringing people together at a venue that was familiar and welcoming
engaging language interpreters – four different languages were supported in the room
five individual child-minding arrangements were put in place (including support staff at the venue so that the children could be close to their parents / guardians and in-home child-minding support)
regular communication with and adaption for panel members that had other access or support requirements.
Flexibility in facilitation
Facilitators considered pace and how the group could best work together to understand the problems and form solutions. It was important to slow the process down to allow time for talking about ideas and to allow space for translators to support the panel participants.
MosaicLab planned each process with this in mind, then was prepared to adapt – there were changes required in the room during every session.
The facilitation team enjoyed stretching their skills. The process reminded us that we need to be flexible and ready to respond to the needs of the participants in the room.
The participants
The panellists showed an incredible level of commitment and passion. They were warm, smart, compassionate, hungry for a safer and healthier living environment and absolutely hilarious at times!
Whilst working with communities to tackle life’s tougher topics, it is important to remember to have a laugh… this group never forgot this!
“It was fantastic. I learnt so much. I hope I can help my son be safe from tobacco in future.”
Clear communication
Communication with the panellists was distributed via a selection of different channels and formats to allow for different communication needs of participants. This varied from attachments to email and shortened information sent in an SMS through to video messages from the facilitators talking about content and process.
outcomes
Following the panel’s work and the sense-making workshops, the toolkit framework was completed and its components were then developed in draft by MosaicLab.
Quit Victoria is currently finalising the toolkit so that it can be piloted in 2023 and then rolled out across Victoria in late 2023.
Quit Victoria is committed to recalling the Quit Victoria Residents’ Panel back together and they are meeting on 30 March 2023 to let them know how the panel’s solutions have been incorporated into the program.
“A huge thank you for the incredible work you have done with our ‘Reducing Tobacco-Related Harm in Public Housing’ project this year.
Your exceptional engagement, facilitation and project/person management skills have made the process so smooth, and enjoyable for all.”
Quit Victoria
“Working with Quit Victoria and the Residents’ Panel on Reducing Tobacco Related Harm in Public Housing project was the highlight of 2022.
The panel were just delightful to work with and to see how they worked together, pushed themselves out of the comfort zone and share their voice for a healthier and happier outcome for their community was so rewarding.
A big shout out to my co-facilitator, Laura Grant, who showed the flexibility of a gymnast each and every time we all came together!”
MosaicLab
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