Connecting Communities: Valuing our Differences and Learning Together

The Greater Manchester Public and Community Involvement and Engagement Forum was set up with the ambition to support public involvement leaders from diverse backgrounds and different organisations including voluntary and community groups to undertake inclusive involvement and engagement activity; share resources and learning, and work on creative outputs together.

We are pleased to announce a series of events aspart of: Connecting Communities: Valuing our Differences and Learning Together, which will take place between Monday 18th October and Thursday 21st October 2021.

During the week we will be sharing with you how the people of Greater Manchester have come together during the pandemic, worked creatively to ensure that communities are supported and the voices of people regardless of their situation can be heard.  

We look to celebrate the many ways in which the communities of Greater Manchester have been working together to improve access to public involvement and engagement opportunities supporting both researchers and heath and care organisations to understand public need during a very challenging time.  We will also be looking to identify some of the challenges to being really inclusive as we look to creative ways to improve how the citizens of Greater Manchester can become involved in their preferred way.

Although the event is online we have worked with our communities ahead of the event to support those who aren’t able to connect during the live events enabling them to showcase the work that they do.

Professor Caroline Sanders, ARC-GM lead for Public and Community Involvement & Engagement said;

"This exciting programme of events reflects the energy and dedication of many people who are working hard to support and give a voice to our diverse communities, and to ensure research and services respond to local needs and inequalities."

Greater Manchester PCIE Forum sub-committee member, Angela Ruddock said;

"We are looking forward to lively discussions and many opportunities for people like me to join and share experiences that can help shape future health research, working together with research colleagues and help  improve the health and wellbeing of Greater Manchester communities."

View the week's schedule and book onto the sessions from here. 

Article published 23/09/2021