Our second guest blogger: Jon Rea - Nottingham City Council

The Creative Community Planning conference has been a great place to find out about other Future City Games and in particular share experiences and strategies for engaging different communities in the game process.

At the risk of sounding a bit glib, when it comes to recruiting players it’s relatively easy to get creative industry types, urban policy wonks, third sector representatives and career-minded public admin students involved in an FCG. It’s a lot harder to engage and retain the wider community – those ‘lay’ players who have most to gain from positive change but who are least empowered to effect it.

What’s become obvious from the conference workshops and case studies is that FCGs work best when clear game parameters are established from the start, and everybody – games masters, players, sponsors, partners - know what they’re aiming for. And an essential part of that process is understanding the capacity of your players. 

In the world of children and young people’s participation – that is, the world of shared decision-making with adults – we use a number of tools to identify participant capacity.

One helpful model is the participation pyramid. At the base of the pyramid are universally accessible participation opportunities - for instance, children and young people engaged at neighbourhood level using inclusive consultation tools to look at generic or localised issues and needs. Further up the pyramid comes the more targeted work, for example projects involving identified cohorts of young people or communities of interest, potentially over more sustained periods of time. The top part of the pyramid is the home of specialist participation, those projects with a very defined cohort or issue in focus, and only those with specialist knowledge and/or experience involved in the work - though representing other children and young people lower down the pyramid where appropriate.

If this model sounds a touch hierarchical, try turning the pyramid upside down and seeing the tip as a filter through which the diverse needs and aspirations of the whole community are distilled into a workable vision for future development. Does it work with a wider ‘lay’ community? Think about your FCG and see if it applies. If not, let me know what model fits your world.

Nb. It’s been pointed out to me before that the pyramid model is too simplistic, that the journey up the sides is never that smooth and is instead rather like a series of steps – more like a ziggurat than a pyramid. In response I’d say that this is all very well but when it come to promoting the model it’s a lot easier to sell the pyramid, given that in the UK at least there is a ban on ziggurat advertising.