Created by the Right Question Institute, The Voice in Decisions Technique (VIDT), is a process that builds people’s skills to participate effectively in decisions that impact their lives. It helps people name or identify key decisions, ask their own questions about those decisions, and focus their questions on key elements of a decision.
The VIDT, a main component of the Right Question Strategy, along with the Question Formulation Technique (QFT), provides a simple, step-by-step process for participants to:
Participants learn to produce their own questions, improve them, and strategize about how to use their own questions about decisions.
There are three key elements to look for in any decision:
1. The reason for a decision
2. The process for making that decision
3. The role you can play in the decision
Focusing on the reason, process and role makes it easier to hold accountable anyone who is making decisions about health care, job training, welfare, education and many other services. Put those three pieces together with the ability to ask one’s own questions and you have a very powerful advocacy and accountability tool.
Each element of the VIDT relates to a fundamental principle of decision-making in a democracy: legitimacy, transparency, and opportunities for participation.
When people begin to ask questions and participate effectively in decisions, they are using fundamental democratic skills that are relevant on any level of democracy.
The Right Question Institute’s vision of Microdemocracy calls for transforming people’s ordinary encounters with public or publicly funded institutions into new opportunities for participation and new starting points for democratic action. Learn more
The hundreds of free resources you will find on our network will help you easily move into action to learn a strategy one day and facilitate the very next.
You’ll also get access to hundreds of free resources that will help you easily move into action to learn a strategy one day and facilitate the very next.