Inclusive Spaces with Knowle West Media Centre

B+B R+D has commissioned this article as part of our ‘test’ and ‘reflect’ inclusion action research. All of the articles in this series represent the views of the author and not of B+B R+D or our partner organisations.

Some of the articles describe experiences of discrimination that readers may find upsetting.

Knowle West Media Centre is a place-based organisation, that has been working in and with local residents in Knowle West, Bristol for over 25 years. Knowle West is on the edge of Bristol city and has approximately 12,000 residents. It ranks highly in government indices of multiple deprivations and the socio-economic challenges are very real. It is a culture rich in heritage, culture and local knowledge, but has often received bad press. We work with people, in this context, in a slow and deep way to imagine and make better futures, using an iterative process of co-creation to facilitate journeys of change.

As one of the Bristol + Bath Creative R+D inclusion partners, we (Knowle West Media Centre) had the opportunity through 2022 to do a deep dive into our practices around creating inclusive spaces.

As we opened our physical KWMC spaces back up post COVID the opportunity to reflect and refresh felt very timely and important. After the challenges of the pandemic, ongoing cost of living crisis and Black Lives Matter protests we felt the urgency to ensure all staff members understood the organisation’s best practices around inclusion and diversity. We realised that a wealth of practice was at risk of being lost, particularly as teams evolve. In the landscape of increased need for and attention on co-creation practices, we realised that collating and making shareable our tested inclusive practices was extremely valuable.

Question:

We had so many questions that we wanted to explore, but Tony Bhajam at Watershed & B+B R+D helped us to distil our enquiry to this main question:

"What do the many facets of an inclusive space look and feel like and what tools and methods can we build to make them better?"

What did we do?

We started with mapping where we are and what we already have, in order to reveal gaps and highlight resources.

Data collection

We created a data collection team, made up of the newest members of staff, as a way for them to learn more about the KWMC culture and bring their unique fresh perspective. They spoke to as many staff members as possible and audio recorded responses to these questions:

What does an inclusive space feel like to you?
Do you think KWMC activities are inclusive to everyone?
Think of an activity you ran recently - talk us through all the ways you make sure it is inclusive...
How do you make the invitation to your activity inclusive?
How do you make sure the experience feels inclusive?
Is there something you wish you did more in relation to inclusivity?
Are there any KWMC tools you use or that have helped inform your practice?

We also gathered responses from staff via an online anonymous survey.

Identifying challenges

From the staff interviews and surveys, the data collection team pulled out key ideas and mapped these into a shared digital space.

Rich material was gathered and clustered. There were some common themes and challenges that arose. We focused these into four main challenge areas:

Bringing everyone together

We believe that creating inclusive spaces is a shared responsibility and everyone's job, so we held a whole staff workshop to take individual responses towards collective action.

In the workshop, we set the tone by practically demonstrating some of our good practices around inclusivity; from physical grounding to transparent context setting. We introduced the new A-Z of Care languages tool, developed by Roseanna Dias and Josephine Gyasi – which you may like to explore here: www.kwmc.org.uk/a-z-of-care-cards.

Co-creating solutions

We started co-creating solutions around each challenge area by asking:

What do we already have to help address the issue?
What do we need to DO?
What could the dream look like if there were no barriers?

This structure helped us to map out where we want to get to and what we might already have to help us get there.

Overall, there was a sense that, as a staff, we can’t jump to all the answers and instead:

“Our inclusivity approach should be co-created with the people we want to feel welcome here”

Committing to Actions

From co-creating solutions, we used the coaching method of GROW (Goals, Reality, Options, Will) to form goals with clear actions that would help us to take these ideas forwards to the next steps. Everyone wrote something they will DO as a direct action on a star and took it away with them. This helped focus a very big topic into something small and tangible - emphasising how it is everyone's job to be improving inclusivity and constantly evolving together. Everyone left with clear and specific actions.

Documenting the workshop

We invited a live illustrator- Camille Aubry, to our workshop to capture the thoughts and feelings from the session.

Reflections and recommendations

Mapping:

You may have more tools / resources and assets than you realise to help create inclusive spaces. Remember to seek them out before reinventing the wheel. Think of ways to map skills, resources and tools, collate them to make them usable, sharable and refreshable.

Think about who leads data collection / mapping / research and who is involved in this process? – what role could new staff take? What role do the communities you work with have?

Find ways to bring the whole team along together to develop a shared language.

Physical spaces:

Don’t jump to physical space improvements without a range of feedback from people with different lived experiences - but also don’t just wait for the big money – there may be some small quick improvements you can do now.

Ongoing work:

Find ways to keep the conversation about inclusion alive and ongoing – this could be through regular training and sharing / spaces for debate.

Establish working groups to hold accountability for action across the whole organisation – it is everyone's jobs, but sometimes needs key champions to keep momentum going and keep things live.

Embedding inclusive practices at every level of detail is not a quick fix and needs a long slow support of culture change.

Training:

Training is not the end – it is essential and important, but can open up new questions and disagreements. This is good and productive, supporting ongoing open conversation is essential. Consider who you are bringing along on this journey?

What next for KWMC?

We are currently part of the city-wide ‘Welcoming Spaces’ scheme (offering a warm and welcoming place through the current fuel crisis) and will be putting into practice all the learning we gained through this R&D. We have employed WECIL to conduct space audits of our physical building spaces and from this will be further co-creating ways to improve our spaces with residents and artists. Making inclusive spaces is a live practice, it is an ongoing job and one which we believe involves deep listening, community action and regular revision.

Title image credit: Ania Shrimpton

Illustrations credit: Camille Aubry