On 27th March 2024, the Changing Futures Sussex programme was awarded Silver Status from the Lived Experience Charter (a national award programme by NHS England/Career Matters) for our work with Peer navigators, Peer Support workers and Experts by Experience.
However, this isn’t where the story starts and its certainly not where it ends!
Receiving the award was the result of a journey that began even before Changing Futures Sussex did; a journey that began back when we championed and developed lived experience roles within the Fulfilling Lives SE project (the predecessor of the Changing Futures programme).
This work was a central part of the design and development of Changing Futures Sussex and the ambition right from the word ‘go’ was to properly embed Lived Experience roles in our delivery across Sussex.
Receiving this award was testament to the determination, hard work, flexibility, adaptability, reflectiveness, openness, willingness, and trust of everyone in the Changing Futures Sussex team: partners, host organisations, colleagues, the central team, the Executive group, other stakeholders, the Peer Workers, clients, Experts by Experience…. They say it ‘takes a village’ …well, in this case it certainly did!
In order to even apply for the Award, Changing Futures Sussex had to sign up to and commit to the Aims and Values of the Lived Experience Charter, and these needed to be central in the work we did.
The Charter aims to:
· Show employers’ commitment to employing people with lived experience.
· Provide opportunities for people with lived experience.
· Increase job roles and opportunities for people with lived experience.
Once through the first stage, we then had to compile a portfolio of evidence and prove how we met ALL of the criteria that we would be assessed on within these four main headings:
Induction and Service Culture - The Service has excellent induction practices and pathways to prepare people and the service for success.
Training and Development - The Service ensures our staff receive accreditation for their work, personal development planning and, where possible, receive qualifications.
Co-production and participation - The Service promotes a supportive workplace for all and co-production with people with lived experience.
Trauma-Informed Workplace - The Service is trauma-informed in its approach with its OWN workforce, environment and practices.
Changing Futures Sussex is a large partnership across a number of providers and our lived experience Peer Work roles are hosted within some of those providers (Emerging Futures, CGL (Change, Grow, Live), Turning Tides and Crawley Open House) so gathering the necessary evidence and information wasn’t a straightforward task. But we did it…..together.
Once submitted via the online portal, our application was assessed by a panel of people with both lived and learned experience; each application scrutinised and picked apart to ensure quality, authenticity, and genuine evidence of embedding lived experience roles in a trauma informed, supportive and compassionate way. We still had to wait though. The awards results weren’t released until the day of the ceremony and believe me, it was a very long few weeks.
But, on a slightly soggy March morning, myself and Trevor, one of our Peer Navigators travelled to the Awards Ceremony in Birmingham to receive our award and be part of a day that saw lived experience placed front and centre in the most inspiring, motivating way.
We waited as other categories were called and awarded and finally it was our turn.
We walked up to the stage having no idea what to expect, slightly overwhelmed by the atmosphere and the anticipation and then those fantastic words….
“…..For this reason we have awarded Changing Futures Sussex a Silver Award”
….and suddenly all the hard work, all the ambitions and all the challenges were recognised in that single moment, and it felt good!
The team had some feedback for us too:
Good evidence provided, excellent opportunities for lived experience staff with the reversed mentoring and training opportunities. It would be good to see in the next application how this has been progressed and further learning from this activity.
Good evidence of supervision and reflective practise.
In a future application we would like to see further career progression implemented and to see more lived experience staff moving into leadership roles.
When reviewing the assessment of Changing Futures West Sussex, there are three words that appear again & again - ‘Good Evidence Of’.
Through their assessment they demonstrated time and again the way their lived experience workforce is critical in the service they deliver.
From additional support and lived experience on interview panels to the way they advertise vacancies and support people with lived experience through the DBS process. Training and eLearning is provided in a trauma informed way and Co-production is utilized for the asset it is.
Clear case studies highlight the value of teamwork and working together. With clear evidence of trauma informed training events and the actioning of feedback on these events to tailor them for maximum effect looking forward, proving people with lived experience have a voice.
However, as was noted at the beginning of this piece….this is just the beginning!
As a programme we hold this Award for three years – now comes the really hard work - we have to live up to it every single day!
And guess what, with the team of people we work alongside, bringing a wealth of lived and learned experience to everything we do, I have no doubt we will.
Andree Ralph – Lived Experience Co-Ordinator – Changing Futures Sussex - andree.ralph@westsussex.gov.uk
Find out more about the Lived experience Charter here: https://www.career-matters.org/lived-experience-charter/
Find out more about our work with Peer Support, Co-Production and Lived Experience here: https://www.changingfuturessussex.org/co-production
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