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Our Lived Experience Forums celebrate 10 years of impact

 

We were at the forefront of taking lived experience to change national policy and practice when we set up a National Lived Experience Forum a decade ago.

Since then we have expanded our reach by launching two regional forums in Manchester and Birmingham.

Our lived experience teams work in policy and campaigns, research, procurement, assurance and service design.  In the last year they have influenced amongst others: Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Agency, HMI Probation, NHS England, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and parliamentary Select Committees. Each year more statutory agencies are listening to lived experience insight and changing what they do as a result.

In this film we made together Lived Experience Forum members reflect on our impact and tell us why lived experience should be at the heart of policy and practice:

 

We are delighted that we won the runner-up prize last night at the Criminal Justice Alliance awards for “Outstanding Organisation” for the coproduction of a peer support model to sit within Liaison and Diversion services in police custody and courts.  By bringing people with lived experience of the criminal justice system into these settings as peer workers, it not only changed the organisational culture, but also increased the engagement of those with the most chaotic lives.