It was fantastic to work with experts in the field of poverty

Sarah Brooks works on the building project to move BBC Wales to Central Square Cardiff. She volunteered as one of nine creative facilitators at the Manchester conference ‘Who Benefits?: TV & Poverty’ This was a partnership between BBC Outreach, the Royal Television Society, the NCVO and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. 

‘I had to really hone my facilitation skills to steer the conversation towards productive outcomes, and to ensure everyone felt their voice was heard.’

When the opportunity came to work as a creative facilitator with BBC Outreach (on how poverty is represented on TV), I jumped at the chance. Storytelling and representation are two elements from my 11-year programme-making background that I’m very passionate about. So this seemed like the perfect opportunity to be part of a conversation looking at these elements.

The aim of the session I facilitated was to find some common ground for ‘what good looks like’ in terms of content and portrayal. It was to bring together everyone with a vested interested to get the best out of this territory.

During the morning at the conference there was a series of interesting case studies and panel discussions which looked at all sides of poverty representation on television – from the perspective of contributors, charities, production companies and commissioners.

In the afternoon we held a creative session looking at potential story-lines that would work for both sides – from the narrative point of view of content producers, and a message point of view from the charities involved with poverty.

I facilitated a table of 12 people who were a mix of both sides. It was an interesting challenge with lots of different opinions across the table. I had to really hone my facilitation skills to steer the conversation towards productive outcomes – and to ensure everyone felt their voice was heard. It was fantastic to work with experts in the field of poverty. It’s such a complex subject and it was beneficial to speak about why, as programme-makers, we think in certain ways (such as story arcs). To hear how we could do better was invaluable.

This session was the first time that I have used my facilitation skills outside of BBC Cymru Wales. It was great to work with other facilitators from across the BBC and to share experiences and knowledge of creative facilitation; while also developing my own skills further.

During the workshop some interesting research was unveiled on how the audience view programmes on poverty. I brought this information back to the Diversity Editorial Lead at BBC Cymru Wales and she has used it to inform her role.

In addition to meeting great people, learning new information and developing my facilitation skills, working with BBC Outreach felt like being part of what the BBC was established for – public service at its best. We brought together programme makers and audiences to enhance what we do.

BBC Outreach & Corporate Responsibility brings the BBC closer to its audiences - particularly those audiences we have identified as harder to reach - with face-to-face activity, community support and staff volunteering.