In our document Listening, Learning & Telling Stories we make clear that it’s absolutely NOT ‘all about ethnography’. But ethnographic approaches, broadly defined, have been a key catalyst for innovation in the work we’ve been supporting in Essex. Want to know more? This is a cool little film made by our friends and partners Esro.

Read – Listening, Learning & Telling Stories – a new publication in which we share what’s been happening so far in our work to support radical new approaches to citizen engagement in Essex.

This week we’ve been at the Unusual Suspects Festival …a free-flowing smorgasbord of workshops, fostering learning and connections between the network of agents who are passionate about using new methodologies to drive social change and better outcomes for the public.

It was a real privilege to join West Essex Clinical Commissioning Group’s Board awayday this week, to which I’d been invited to bring a provocation around patient/citizen insight and ethnography. Whilst the brief family stories I shared on film and with quotes/photos were not primarily focused on health-related themes, CCG Board members needed no encouragement to grasp the implications for integrated commissioning of health and social care.

For us, listening (and really hearing) what people have to say about their lives and the public services they use is at the very heart of what we do. It’s one of the approaches we believe is right and necessary if we are going to change how organisations and professionals see the world, and consequently improve it.

Dave Hill, Executive Director for People Commissioning, Essex County Council, speaks about the power of ethnographic approaches.