A Fair Deal for Wellbeing? Discussion Kit
What is it?
This discussion kit has been designed to get people thinking more about their wellbeing or that of their community and to consider what action could be taken to improve it in their area.
Developed by Our Life in partnership with NHS North West, the North West Public Health Observatory, NHS Cumbria and NHS Liverpool, 'A Fair Deal for Wellbeing?' enables small groups of citizens to organise their own discussion about this complex issue. Through the use of a set of cards, groups can consider a range of opinions before suggesting what they think is the best course of action. The kit can be used in groups of up to 10 people or as few as three and allows people to lead their own deliberative processes in whichever venue they like, with whoever they want to. 
Whether you are a group wanting to know more about improving your own wellbeing or interested in taking action together within your community; maybe you are a worker wanting to develop a plan or to seek views from others about what is important - this kit is built on everyone having a part to play in improving wellbeing.
The discussion kit has also been designed so that more people can find out about the results of a large survey across North West England in 2009 which asked 18,500 people about their wellbeing. More information on the survey results can be found here.
Using it
The kit is made up of four main sections, an instruction booklet, a set of story cards, a set of influencer cards and a planning grid. Each kit also contains a couple of fliers to give people some extra information - the 'Who can help?' flier and the 'Wellbeing factsheet'.
Where to obtain the kit?
We have made the kit available as a free download which you can access from the box on the right. These have been designed in black and white so it's easier on your printer or in case you need to photocopy it. We recommend that you try and print it on thick paper or a thin card. The influencer cards have been designed so there are two on every page, please make sure you cut each page in two before you use it.
However, many of you who have attended our discussion kit launch workshops have told us you prefer to use the high quality hard copy kit we had printed rather than download it. We have, therefore, produced more of these kits and they are now available to buy for just £7 each. To order your kits, please contact Jayne Malone on 0161 233 7500 or at jayne.malone@ourlife.org.uk.
Once you’ve got hold of the kit, this is what we recommend you do next:
- Find a group you would like to use the kit with. This could be a group that meets already, for example, a residents group or staff from a workplace or any other group; or it could be a group of friends or family; in fact anyone that may have an interest in improving wellbeing.
- The kit does not need a trained facilitator to lead it. However, it is useful if someone in the group takes on the role of the 'dealer'. It is best if the 'dealer' looks through the kit before the group gets together (this will take only 5-10 minutes).
- Use it!
- We are anxious to improve the kit all the time and to see what impact the use of the kit has. So, we are encouraging as many people as possible to fill in our online evaluation form. Click here to complete the online questionnaire (it'll only take you about ten minutes).
- If you can, try and tell others about it so we end up with thousands of conversations about wellbeing taking place all over the country.
If you have any further questions do not hesitate to get in touch with peter.bryant@ourlife.org.uk. If you are interested in encouraging more people in your area, neighbourhood or community to use the kit, we have some suggestions of how you might be able to 'launch' the kit locally.
Getting others to use it
The kit was launched in September 2010 and we are encouraging people to run their own Discussion Kit launch workshops throughout the region. The aim of these workshops is to familiarise more people with the kit and to help them to share ideas for how to get more people using it in their own patch. The best people to invite to such workshops are those that you think would be committed to encouraging other people to use the kit.
If you are thinking of running your own launch workshop we would suggest that you can run one in about three hours. In this time you can get people to use the kit themselves in small groups and then get them to share ideas for using the kit in their area.
To help you run your own launch workshop we have produced a PowerPoint presentation which you can download here. The presentation can be used by anyone organising a launch workshop. It gives a little background to the development of the Discussion Kit and explains the structure for the three-hour workshop. It consists of a series of slides plus some supporting notes for the presenter (to view the notes just click notes from the view tab).
As part of our ongoing evaluation of the uptake of the discussion kit, we would love to hear from you if you run a launch workshop in your area. Please let us know by emailing holly.keogh@ourlife.org.uk.
Alternatively, if you would like to run a workshop but don't feel able to do so yourself, we can run one for you (date and fee arranged on application). If you would Our Life's help to organise and run a launch workshop for your stakeholders/colleagues, please email holly.keogh@ourlife.org.uk.
