programme updates

 Incredibly grateful to our guest speakers and panel members who spoke at the Multiple Disadvantage conference on 8th October 2024.  

Safia Cragg(Kusoma) , Michaela Queensborough (SACMHA) and Lewis Goodyear (SYHA) held the space for us to truly challenge ourselves and others as to how we think about systemic racism, the meaning of being a true ally to racialised communities and the importance of sitting with the uncomfortable so we can be an active, and consistent, instigator of change.

Lucy Campbell (SHP) Rosie Peers and Polly Foster (SWWOP) and Linsay Hurst (Target Housing) powerfully brought into the room women’s voices and lived experience on the intersectionality of gender and multiple disadvantage and the necessary nuances that are needed when designing and delivering services with the women we support.

Paula Harriott (Unlock) Hannah Kirkbride and Sameer Iqbal (Career Matters)  inspirational panel dived into the importance of ensuring lived experience is represented across leadership roles and the specific challenges anyone with a criminal record has to overcome to be employed, by working 10x harder than someone that hasn’t. Also an opportunity to spread the word about Career Matters lived experience charter that celebrates the great practice happening across the country.

Finally Haf Ramzan, Leigh Arnold and Kelvin Baptiste’s (SYHA) honesty was a snapshot into the realities of supporting those recruited into lived experience roles and how we create healthy working environments that doesn’t dilute their value by forcing a square peg into a round hole.

Thanks to all that came and for genuinely participating in creating a space to pause and reflect so can take action in our places of work and communities. 

Target Housing launched their Growth Project, funded by the National Lottery Community Fund. The project will support women who are at risk of, or have already had, their children removed from their care. This includes 'informal removal' where children are in the care of family members without having been through the family court. 

The project is a national pilot and those accommodated by the project will receive psychological support through Paradigm Psychological Support Services. 

They will also host a bi-weekly peer support drop in for any woman who has experienced child removal and will be creating toolkits to support frontline practitioners. Changing Futures is a member of the placements panel and will be a key partner in evaluating the service. 

 Out of 57 organisations who applied for the lived experience charter (coordinated by Career Matters) Changing Futures was one of 7 who were awarded a gold award. The award is in recognition of the programme's recruitment and development of staff with lived experience.

This was the panel's feedback: 

"From start to finish Sheffield Changing Futures showed that recruiting, retaining and developing people with lived experience is at the heart of everything they do. From the recruitment process, to recruiting managers supporting potential applicants to the point of employment, they showed how they changed policy to accommodate people with lived experience and not the other way round. 

They provided different recruitment opportunities for people with lived experience, providing opportunities to start as a volunteer with a progression pathway into paid employment and several training opportunities and pathways to develop themselves. People with lived experience in managerial roles is a pleasure to hear. Coproduction is part of the ethos of this service and it shows throughout both the application and support evidence"