Introduction
Working in public engagement is often a collaborative effort and involves getting under the skin of several different communities, cultures and mindsets. Working in this way is rewarding and interesting but can be stressful and difficult in a way that is less usual for other professional services roles in academia as support networks are not as established as those in other roles.
At Edinburgh Napier University we’ve been thinking about this for some time and considering if established tools and approaches used in other sectors that might be helpful for Public Engagement Professionals (PEPs). Our School of Health and Social Care is home to experts in nursing, midwifery, social work, occupational health and physiotherapy. They, are their students, are constantly having to deal with emotionally challenging situations in their work and studies and they’ve been developing practical strategies to deal with this. One of these is to use emotional touchpoints to support students through emotionally challenging situations, as described in this article.
What are Emotional Touchpoints?
Emotional Touchpoints are a powerful way of helping people share experiences (touchpoints) through the selection of emotional words that enables them to describe how they feel. This is typically facilitated using a set of cards, like a card game, in which the cards contain touchpoints (experiences) and emotional words. This approach has helped people to articulate how they feel about their experience and helped people understand and respond to emotional challenges related to healthcare workplace experiences, e.g. communicating bad news with patients.
PEP Emotional Touchpoints Resources (previous research)
Developing touchpoints for PEPs
Following a workshop at the NCCPE Engage Conference in Bristol in 2019 facilitated by Dawn Smith and Stephen Smith we decided to look into creating touchpoints which would be useful for PEPs. In 2025, joined by Mandy Gentleman, we were awarded funding by the NCCPE to co-design touchpoints. Workshops took place with PEPs in Bristol and Manchester in July 2025, and in Edinburgh in December 2025. The PEPs who attended the sessions helped us to understand the shared challenges which they faced in their work, which we then turned into touchpoints.
Emotional Touchpoints Update (autumn 2025)