Action Learning Set For Public Sector Decision Makers 2010-11

LSx recently held an Action Learning Set of four sessions, bringing together public sector professionals from across London. Facilitated by Ben Lee of Shared Intelligence, the Set focused on exploring the methodological issues around designing behaviour change interventions.

What was the series about?

Many contemporary problems like climate change, obesity and anti-social behaviour can't be solved through regulation or control. LSx, in partnership with Westminster City Council and Shared Intelligence and funded by London Councils, delivered a series of four breakfast events to:

• Help participants explore and develop their knowledge and understanding of how to champion lifestyle changes
• Build on the work of The Capital Ambition Guide to behaviour change
• Address how to best build capacity, embed common standards and share innovative thinking to tackle the challenges facing London’s public sector in a shifting political and cultural landscape.

Who attended?

Participants were local authority officers and managers, and others working at local levels, engaged in effecting sustainable lifestyle change. Attendees were required to commit to attending all four sessions.

Aims

This series of events aimed to support public sector professionals to promote positive lifestyle changes:

• In the design of projects
• In their engagement with their peers
• In the policy making process
• In how communities are empowered to access information on lifestyle changes.

What came out of the sessions?

Using the London Collaborative Framework for Behaviour Change, attendees presented their own case studies as the basis for discussion, raising insightful questions and enabling the sharing of experiences. Framed in the context of impending cuts to funding and government ideas about the Big Society, the session produced some highly insightful discussion. Key themes emerged as challenges to be tackled, such as:

• Exploring new forms of engagement through social media
• Challenges of delivering measurable outputs to demonstrate highly qualitative issues
• Political pressure to deliver success, often with little 'licence to experiment'.

A video diary…

For our final session, LSx invited WinkBall to capture the views and impressions of our attendees in short video interviews. Click here to watch participants talk about what the Action Learning Set meant for them.

What attendees said about the series:

• “Made behaviour change much less scary.”
• “Helped me to engage my brain early and I ended up having a great day afterwards.”
• “Really useful to have an honest discussion without having to put a rosy glow on everything and explore where we haven’t succeeded as well as where we have.”

Read a report on the series here

Find out about our forthcoming Action Learning Sets and how you can participate.