Maximising the benefits of participation for all

Once you made decisions about the participation level(s), based on the aims, the needs of your service and available resources, whichever the level you choose, through participation, refugees become better informed and engaged, and their views increasingly help shape services. On the other hand, when participation takes place, an expectation that things will get better ensues. If they don’t, there is a clear risk that participants may start seeing such participation as ‘tokenistic’, and you clearly want to avoid this outcome. 

Tokenism is not a characteristic of specific forms of participation, as some think. Simply providing accessible information to refugees about your service can be an effective and meaningful practice, if the expectation is that refugee will be able to use the information to tackle access barriers, for instance. On the other hand, a participation process that aims, but fails to deliver co-production could be seen as tokenistic in the end. Tokenism arises when participation fails to deliver change, it may alienate participants.

Although participation can help providers understand the lived experience of refugees, its aim is to influence decisions that lead to positive change and improvements.

Preventing tokenism can be to a large degree achieved by managing expectations. This can be achieved in various ways, including:

• Establishing the aims of each participation activity clearly
• Describing how the views of participants will be recorded and used
• Explaining how decisions are made and influenced
• Identifying and acknowledging all the issues that were raised 
• Feeding back regularly and after each participation activity on its impacts
• Avoiding over-promising 
• Being honest – positive change and outcomes are not always possible, so explain why suggestions were not implemented

Keeping and sharing an action log or plan with participants can be useful. Make sure that you report on them regularly. Services are constrained by a range of factors, and the pace of change or improvement can be quite slow. And in some cases, lack of results can lead to frustration with the participation process, and, with it, the perception of tokenism, and disengagement.

Participation opportunities can become demotivating if they are perceived to be tokenistic, or primarily promoting the image of an organisation. Therefore, transparency is of the essence.

Refugee communities are often described as ‘hard to reach’, but that is usually because ‘we’ (as in services) are not doing enough to reach them. It is often said that their voices are not being heard, but that may be because we are not listening. Developing refugee participation means developing a partnership or collaboration with refugees. But this partnership is not only about reaching out and listening (things that ‘we’ set out to do). It is not simply a gift that we bestow on marginalised communities. Participation is primarily about refugees’ agency and empowerment.

The experience of forced migration is deeply disempowering and, regardless of how resilient refugees are, integration is usually something done to, not with, them. Successful and effective participation inevitably shifts power relationships, and there are many ways through which you can ensure that participation empowers refugees, including:

• Hold honest conversations with participants, especially those who are service users, about how power can be negotiated and shifted to refugee communities
• Create opportunities for refugees to participate at a strategic level 
• Embed refugee participation in the structure of your organisation, recognising the role of lived experience in the decision-making process
• Ensure that people who have lived experience eventually take up leadership roles in the participation and decision-making processes

The marginalisation of refugee communities is reflected in the under-representation of refugees in the staff structure of most organisations, and especially in leadership roles. The participation of refugees in the services that affect their lives, will not only increase ownership and influence on decision-making, but may help prepare them for more formal roles in organisations, as employees, managers, or delivery partners. It has a major role in the gradual empowerment of refugees.

Suggested actions

• Develop a participation risk assessment focused on the risk of tokenism. Make sure you include all the risks, including potential negative impacts on participants, and risk to reputation. One way to increase the likelihood of success is to assess and manage risks of things going wrong.
• Create a realistic vision of refugee empowerment for your service or organisation. Although never easy to implement, a vision is always a good starting point to motivate staff and participants alike. The vision will typically include the degree of influence that refugees will have on the integration process, including service planning and provision, and maybe the strategic steps that you are going to take to accomplish that vision.