Danielle Marie Agnello, Giuliana Longworth and Lauren McCaffrey are Marie Skłodowska-Curie doctoral fellows within the Health CASCADE project. Their research focuses on investigating methods for co-creation and how they impact the co-creation process, informing knowledge and guidelines for the successful implementation and evaluation of co-creation processes and applying co-creation methods in the workplace to improve the way lifestyle interventions are delivered and to inform best practices and policy to improve public health.
The ISBNPA Dare2Share Session
In a world that often emphasizes success and perfection, one session dared to stand out by celebrating failure. Health CASCADE’s ESRs, Danielle, Giuliana and Lauren, co-hosted a Dare2Share session at the 22nd Annual Meeting of The International Society of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA) in Uppsala, Sweden (June 2023). The event was titled the ‘Church of Fail: The Congregation of Co-creation.’ The event and title were inspired from the method of the same name, the Church of Fail by Matt Matheson
Failures shared
The session was split into two parts. First, in the Church of Fail, participants were invited to the front of the room to introduce themselves and share their story of failure by answering the three questions:
What did you fail at?
How did you cope with it?
What would you do differently?
In the spirit of support and vulnerability, when a participant stepped forward and introduced themselves, saying, “hello my name is____.” In a heartwarming response, the audience united in a chorus of welcoming, “Hi____.” Then, when the speaker finished sharing their story, the whole audience stood up and gave them an applause of support. This was something we added to the Church of Fail method, because the simple act of acknowledging one another created an immediate sense of belonging.
During this activity, participants shared failures related to:
• Recruitment
• The time needed to conduct the process.
• Challenge of taking several roles as a researcher, e.g., facilitator, researcher, administrative support, etc
• Having underestimated the challenges related to facilitation.
• Not involving stakeholders from the beginning of the process
• Challenge of interpreting and making sense out of a lot of data
• Not allowing for flexibility during the process
• Not planning for evaluation beforehand
• Difficulty in bringing together different stances.
Solutions proposed
Following the Church of Fail, the participants took part in a unique ‘Solution Generation’ activity, where they divided into five groups and engaged in a facilitated breakout session designed to address common co-creation failures.
Armed with the innovative Health CASCADE Solution Canvas, the groups embarked on a collaborative journey to brainstorm and discuss potential solutions. Some key solutions generated to common co-creation failures include:
• Plan ahead before embarking on co-creation activities.
• Adapt the co-creation process to your target group.
• Ask the co-creators whether they are willing to do ‘homework’ tasks outside of workshops.
• Know and understand your own limits as a facilitator.
• Manage expectations of what co-creation can achieve.
• Acknowledge negative experiences or events and don’t hyper-focus on them.
• Be flexible – discuss your research questions with the co-creators.
• Integrate implementation and sustainability into co-creation.
• Don’t overestimate what you can achieve with your co-creation project and make sure you have enough time to complete it
• Adjust your sampling strategy and ensure there are incentives to join
The event was an absolute hit, with an overwhelmingly positive response from the participants! One person even said, “Church of fail, more like church of success!”
Additionally, our participants eagerly envisioned implementing the newfound method and materials with their own students and colleagues:
“It inspired me to do the same with my PhD students”
“I want to use this method in my monthly meetings with my research group!”
And one individual found a fresh perspective on failure, sharing, “I was inspired to look at failure in a different way.”
The energy and enthusiasm received from the participants left the Danielle, Giuliana and Lauren feeling invigorated and affirmed in their mission to champion the importance of embracing failure!
You can learn from failure too!
If you find this concept as inspiring as we do, then please do reach out to our team at: danielle.agnello@gcu.ac.uk, Lauren.McCaffrey@gcu.ac.uk, & giulianaraffaellal@blanquerna.url.edu to receive supportive materials so you can engage in this valuable activity with your colleagues, friends or individually. You can also watch our promotion video for this Dare2Share session here: Dare2Share Teaser: Church of Fail: The Congregation of Co-creation
Together, we can continue to celebrate growth and the importance of turning failures in victories!
Finally, if you are interested in finding other engaging methods, like the Church of Fail, Danielle’s recent blog delves deeper on the topic of methods, you can find it here: https://healthcascade.eu/co-creation-exposed-are-we-all-talk-and-no-action/
You can learn more about their project here
DANIELLE AGNELLO
MSCA Fellow
Methods in evidence based co-creation
GIULIANA LONGWORTH
MSCA Fellow
Building evidence-based co-creation: implementation and evaluation
LAUREN MCCAFFREY
MSCA Fellow
What are the emotional and psychological effects of participating in co-creation?