Do we truly value the role of lived experience in our work? How can we close the gap between those who experience social issues and those working to solve them? What are you doing to put lived experience front and centre in your work?

A growing number of people are starting to speak out about the importance of lived experience to social purpose work and the need to shift power in the social sector.

We want you to be part of this movement.

Why?

The issues our society faces can only be meaningfully addressed through engaging those directly affected by them. This is widely accepted, but how is ‘lived experience’ really valued in the social sector? Are we providing meaningful and equitable opportunities for those with first-hand experience of social issues to solve some of the biggest challenges facing their communities and society more broadly?

The answer is – not nearly enough. A recent report by Baljeet Sandhu into the value of lived experience in social change suggests that despite the many benefits of lived experience to social purpose work and some pioneering organisations in this space, people with lived experience are still largely viewed as ‘informants’ to rather than agents of change.

The report findings are stark but familiar – organisations that make up the social sector are overwhelmingly run by individuals with learned rather than lived expertise; commitment to lived experience across the sector remains far from universal; progress has halted or gone backwards in some fields; and genuine power-sharing is rare. There are many of us who think we could be doing better and there are still many things (attitudes, structures, fears and anxieties) getting in the way.

As we continue to grapple with persistent and in some cases worsening social issues, we urgently need to build bridges between social purpose organisations and the communities they purport to serve. The social sector cannot afford to be perpetuating the inequalities it seeks to tackle. It’s time for us to recognise our role in the problem and be part of the solution; to work alongside the people and communities we serve in order to strengthen our collective power for positive change.

Get involved

We are holding a half-day event in Birmingham on Wednesday 23rd May to explore what this means for social purpose work in the city and to begin the process of co-creating strategies for a more diverse and equitable social sector.

The event will convene social purpose organisations – charities, voluntary sector organisations, social enterprises, funders, and statutory bodies - operating within the Birmingham area.

It will be an opportunity to highlight barriers and opportunities within the system and our own structures, to share learning, challenge current practice and build momentum for change. The event is part of a wider process of co-creation that we hope will inspire sector-wide changes in Birmingham, and more broadly.

Please sign up on the Eventbrite link. For further details and any questions, please contact Marion at marion.brossard@tsip.co.uk

More details

Who are we?

We are a partnership of organisations and individuals committed to championing lived experience in social purpose work:

Delivery partners: UnLtd and The Social Innovation Partnership (TSIP)
Expert advisors: Baljeet Sandhu - 2014 Clore Social Leadership Fellow and 2017 Yale World Fellow; and Sade Brown - Sour Lemons
Local Expert by Experience ambassadors: Amahra Spence, Gabrille Gillespie
Funding partner: The Big Lottery Fund
Steering group: Baljeet Sandhu, Mark Norbury (CEO, UnLtd), Stephen Bediako (Chair, TSIP) , Imandeep Kaur (Founder and Director, Impact Hub Birmingham), Tokunbo Ajasa-Oluwa (CEO, The Foyer Federation), Paula Harriott (Head of Prisoner Engagement, Prison Reform Trust).

What we want to do

Our mission is to ensure that there are meaningful and equitable opportunities for experts by experience in the social sector.

By experts by experience, we mean 'social change-makers who seek to use their lived experience to inform the work of social purpose organisations, to drive and lead social change, and/or to drive their social impact work' (Sandhu, 2017).

Our aim is not to position lived expertise against learned expertise but to highlight the value of both and to catalyse the individual and systemic changes that are needed to ensure that a wider range of people can create solutions to society's challenges together.

How we are going about it

With support from the Big Lottery Fund over a twelve-month period from September 2017, we are looking to understand the barriers and opportunities for experts by experience to become active leaders of change.

We began by interviewing experts by experience already pioneering change across the UK and getting their perspectives into these issues and the challenges they faced in their social change journeys. We also interviewed a range of social purpose organisations cited as champions by these experts.

We are now focusing activity in two locations – Birmingham and Bristol – where we will work alongside local experts by experience, charities, voluntary sector organisations, social enterprises, funders, and statutory bodies to define the barriers as they experience them in their contexts, and to identify and co-produce some practical strategies to address those barriers and leverage opportunities for change.

Lessons learned from these sites will be shared publicly so that they can benefit the wider social sector and support work in other parts of the country.

What’s happened so far

We have held highly attended and inspiring initial events in both cities to inform and engage local community changemakers in this work. Building on these events and wider outreach, we have recruited cohorts of 12-15 experts by experience in each city representing diverse communities and social missions. We are currently working with these cohorts to explore the challenges and opportunities they face as changemakers in their city.

We now need YOU. We want social purpose organisations to partner with our inspiring cohorts in Birmingham and Bristol to create meaningful opportunities and progression routes to begin levelling the playing field and build collective action to address existing barriers.

Between April and August 2018, we will be holding a series of workshops in the project locations, aimed at unpacking the issues in each context and identifying priorities to tackle. This is an iterative process that we hope will result in new approaches, collaborations, and commitments – in short, an action plan for change.

Birmingham dates for participants: 23rd May for first workshop, 7th June for 2nd workshop, 4th of July for last workshop

Come along to our event in Birmingham, have your say, explore how you can remain involved and be part of building a new and more inclusive social sector.

Championing Lived Experience - a Call to Action for Birmingham