What you need to do

The toolkit has mostly covered the ‘why’ of participation, and we are now going to focus on the ‘how’. The focus of this chapter is on the types or methods of participation. This is not the same as the ‘levels’ of participation mentioned. Whether the key objective of a participation activity is to inform, consult, involve, collaborate with, or empower refugees (using the IAP2 terminology), one of the key questions that you need to deal with is what methods you are going to use to achieve it.

By participation methods we mean the different techniques that can be used to obtain the views of refugees and/or foster participation more widely. They are the types of organised activities (which can be more or less structured) that aim specifically to give voice to refugees. There is a huge choice of participation methods, and it is not the aim of this toolkit to give you a comprehensive list, even less so to make recommendations. You will have to make judgement about what would work best in a particular situation and be open to the possibility of a particular method not yielding your expected outcomes. 

The choice of methods will be dictated by a range of factors: the aims of participation, the number and characteristics of potential participants (gender, age, language abilities, digital skills, etc.), as well as time and other resources. Engaging with refugees from different nationalities who do not speak English poses particular challenges, as they may require interpreters or translations in different languages. You may also wish to combine different methods, or even devise something new. 

A useful first step could be to use and empower existing self-organised advocacy groups or supported projects (see list at the end). These groups have been constituted to give voice to people with lived experience, and can provide invaluable insights, even if they do not include users of your service. They typically include refugees and asylum seekers who have been recruited for participation.

These roles sometimes come under different names such as ‘champions’, ‘ambassadors’, ‘community connectors’, and so on (depending on needs and resources, you may consider developing such programmes in your organisation). They may be great interlocutors to discuss and develop solutions to specific problems. You may also engage with Refugee Community Organisations (RCOs), who advocate for certain groups and communities in the refugee population.

In many cases, you will want to engage with users, staff and volunteers closely associated with your service or organisation. Beyond developing information resources for refugees, one of the easiest ways to promote participation is to hold meetings or events with refugees, where various issues can be discussed. However, such meetings or events require specialist facilitation skills (see the ‘Trauma-informed participation’).

In person meetings help build trust with participants. Many societies where refugees come from have strong and rich community life, and refugees are used to discuss issues face to face. Moreover, many refugees may not be familiar with using online or digital forms of consultation and participation or lack the required digital skills or equipment. Alternatively, or even concomitantly, you may explore using digital platforms, including social media, to run things like questionnaires and surveys, but please be aware that many refugees may require support accessing those. Simple feedback tools such as comments boxes may also be used but require a degree of engagement and information to be effective, as many refugees are not familiar with them.

Meetings can be more of less formal. You may wish to use them to primarily keep refugees informed about developments, but it’s a good idea to go beyond that and empower refugees to express their own views and even influence the way that services are planned and delivered. More formal meetings, like focus groups come with higher costs, but providers will recruit participants, facilitate the meetings, and then report on outcomes.