What matters in Making and Cloth(ing)-led Facilitation in healthcare? Towards a practice framework for enhancing participation and collaboration.

Facilitation is an established profession that holds its origins in systemic and rapid organisation change and technological advancement occurring since the 1980s. It is a practice that accompanies strategic planning, performance management and public consultation initiatives and is used in individual and group settings to foster participation, behaviour change, and to enhance collaboration. Within the UK health sector, Facilitation has become increasingly drawn upon to respond to significant changes occurring over the last 25 years, catalysed by market-based reforms, technological innovation and financial pressures. And accompanied by a rise in longterm conditions, an ageing population and growing expectations of an increasingly informed population. Professional Facilitators are, today, employed in this setting to support the alignment of services with patients’ values and in the Co-Design of health services. These practices use a range of tools and methods to facilitate the contribution of different sets of ideas, cultural customs, languages and standpoints. This PhD reviews Facilitation practices in healthcare with a specific methodological approach - Making and Cloth(ing)-led Facilitation – which is used by the researcher herself, and by other Facilitators in complex health contexts. A review that convenes examples of this type of practice is yet to be conducted.

This study examines contemporary Making and Cloth(ing)-led Facilitation practices in healthcare and uses a New Materialist lens to analyse their materiality – to understand how they work and what they do. Two distinct types of Making and Cloth(ing)-led Facilitation are reviewed in the thesis: 1. A Facilitated Workshop: Semi-structured interviews with selected Facilitators, accompanied by reflections on the researcher’s own practice, examine the mechanics of workshop methods. 2. A Wardrobe Probe : The design and deployment of a Wardrobe Probe, by the researcher, provides insight into the role of self-directed methods in the context of breast cancer care. By detailing ‘What matters in Making and Cloth(ing)-led Facilitation in healthcare?’ this study provides an enhanced understanding of this approach to Facilitation. And presents practice and ethical frameworks to inform future facilitators working in health settings. Overall, this piece of research provides insight into Making and Cloth(ing)-led Facilitation in healthcare, consolidates examples of this facilitative approach and presents opportunity for its wider application.