The following section will lead you through each step of running a Tree Value Visions workshop or citizen panel. On the night, it is assumed that each facilitator has a printed version of the 'Facilitation Guide', which can be downloaded from the course's final 'Resources' section. This online section goes through each row of the Facilitation Guide in order, to unpack the procedure in more detail. 

Indicative timings are provided for a 3 hour workshop. If a 3.5 hour workshop is possible the rows indicate where additional time is recommended.

 

Theoretical background

Tree Value Visions (TVV) is designed to be implemented through a single workshop of 15-30 participants. The design is intended to be relatively straightforward to implement, without the use of overly complex facilitation tools. The practical objective of the workshop is to evaluate participants’ value-based visions of, and priority outcomes and actions for, future treescapes within the chosen locality.

The workshop plan is anchored in a values-based theoretical model of participatory, group deliberation, the Deliberative Value Formation model by Kenter, Reed and Fazey (2016), in turn grounded in a number of social psychological theories of values and a review of theory and practical knowledge around participation and deliberation. Through a number of steps, the model moves deliberation from ‘transcendental’ values, our overarching guiding principles and life goals, to discussion of contextual values, or the importance of specific things like trees and treescapes, to value indicators – in this case identified priority outcomes and actions. The model is implemented here through a qualitative multicriteria analysis structure, where participants evaluate different actions against sets of prioritised outcomes (Ranger et al., 2016). This has the benefit that participants can consider options in a structured way, supporting critical thinking and group-based ‘communicative rationality’ (i.e. reasoned conclusions achieved through collective deliberation) that forms a cornerstone to deliberative democratic theory.