Our future work starts by us looking in-house at our own support agency. As we become more experience in our evaluation we seek to expand our reach into other agencies and support other people with Lived Experience in Great Yarmouth to become involved.
I never thought this was a story that would be mine, When I arrived at that hostel door eight years ago, I was broken, I had no confidence and self-esteem and thought I would end up in prison. Volunteering has given me my life back and made me feel worthwhile and that I contribute to society.
Our future work starts by us looking in-house at our own support agency. As we become more experienced in our evaluation we seek to expand our reach into other agencies and support other people with Lived Experience in Great Yarmouth to become involved.
With the support of Herring House Trust we have created a document that will serve as our guide to keep us accountable for our plans. We intend for it to be a flexible, evolving document that can adapt as needed to remain realistic. We will regularly review the action plan to make sure it stays aligned with the goals of those who use our services.
Scrutiny Panel
To bring together a group of people with Lived Experience at all stages of their homeless journey to look at areas of work, policy and procedure, within our own support agency and then reaching out to other services in the Town. Our hope is those services will welcome the perspective we bring and be responsive to the offer of service evaluation.
Newsletters
With a focus on design and content coming from people with Lived Experience this will be produced quarterly. We will lead on writing articles and get involved with the design and editing of the newsletters.
Website
We’ve created the Lived Experience Collective website for Great Yarmouth. It’s a place to find local support services and a platform for people to share their experiences and help shape how services are designed and delivered in the area. It will be the main site for anyone wanting to get involved.
Opportunities to Volunteer – increasing the number of clients actively engaged in co-production at all stages of accommodation and support.
We will review our Lived Experience programme to ensure opportunities are open to all. We will build a more structured approach to training to support coproduction activities. We will provide coaching, support and mentoring to support those who use our services to lead on activities. We will ensure there is a system of oversight for clients, so they are not overburdened. We will create a system of rewards and recognitions for those engaged in co-production.
Create a Best Practice Centre
We will work to develop a physical space as well as an organisational space of Best Practice in terms of co-production and Lived Experience. We will use this space to provide training, peer support, educational opportunities and well-being services to those who join the Lived Experience Collective.
Recognition
We will build a structure of reward and recognition for the contribution those with Lived Experience make that sits comfortably with them.
“What it’s all About” Meetings
We will hold regular meetings to spread the word of Co-production and Lived Experience and find novel ways to raise awareness and build relationships to support inclusion.
Ordinary Moments
We will develop an ‘Ordinary Moments’ programme to increase the value of support at in the ordinary moments of life – making the everyday within our services more fulfilling and supportive.
Supported Housing Portfolio ‘A portable showcase of talents’
We will help Herring House Trust to develop a system to mark the achievements each person makes as they move through their supported housing journey within the Trust. We want to help others have the opportunity to record the key achievements and milestones they have reached whilst receiving support from the Trust. With our peer support we aim to encourage those people to join together and increase their influence on the services they receive.
Client Involvement Committee
This is our aspirational objective. With support from local community based organisations we want to form a Committee to oversee the contribution of Lived Experience within Great Yarmouth and to set the agenda for future work. As we develop and become established our aim will be to create a regional framework of similar Boards who meet regularly to be the voice of those people who are often overlooked and marginalised.
Funding
The Lived Experience Collective is supported, in part by Norfolk County Council through the Rough Sleeper Drug & Alcohol Treatment Grant/RISE Initiative Grant to deliver projects and provide peer support. Additional funding is contributed to this work by Herring House Trust through legacy funding. Skills sharing and consultancy support has been offered by the Lloyds Bank Foundation. Working with support from Herring House Trust the Collective has set up a system of ‘paying forward’ funds from the One Cup at a Time project to contribute to running the Brew Crew Café and the group benefits from the proceeds of sales from their creative writing book – ‘Untitled’. The Collective will continue to seek support from Herring House Trust to help them secure funding for its future.
Measuring our impact
We are working towards developing a toolkit to measure how we as volunteers within the Lived Experience Collective are affected by or volunteering work. The toolkit will look at:-