Facilitator Guide
Step-by-step guidance for planning and running a listening session, including preparation, facilitation tips, and how to capture and use what you hear.
Download GuideSUD Resource Hub
Listening Session Toolkit
A structured approach to gathering meaningful, actionable feedback from individuals and families with lived experience, designed to support care improvement and organizational learning.
Turning Stories into Shared Learning
Listening sessions create structured space for individuals and families to share experiences with healthcare systems, identify what works, and surface what needs to change. When done well, they bridge the gap between lived experience and care improvement.
This toolkit gives organizations everything they need to plan, facilitate, and act on a listening session.
Listening is not a passive act. When structured intentionally, it becomes one of the most direct paths to meaningful care improvement.
Included Resources
Session Planning Template
A structured template for mapping out session goals, participant outreach, logistics, and follow-up actions. Included in the Facilitator Guide.
Download GuideParticipant Overview
A plain-language overview for participants explaining the session purpose, how it will run, and how their input will be used. Included in the Facilitator Guide.
Download GuideImplementation Guidance
Key principles
- Compensate participants fairly
- Be clear about how input will be used
- Create psychologically safe space
- Close the feedback loop with participants
- Connect findings to actual decisions
Suggested users
- Quality improvement teams
- Patient experience staff
- Community health workers
- Advocacy organizations
- Healthcare leadership teams
Video Walkthrough
How to Run a Listening Session
An introduction to the toolkit and practical guidance for planning and facilitating a listening session with people with lived experience.