Lived insights is led by a small group of people who have experience of addiction, homelessness, mental ill health and the criminal justice system. we work alongside people who share their experiences to address inequality, poverty and exclusion by listening, gathering insights about local issues that matter and working together to with policy makers to improve local services. A major development during the year has been the growth of our Community Research Hub. Through the Hub, we support people embedded within their own communities to develop research skills, confidence an experience and to take an active role in designing, carrying our research on matters within those communities. This means research benefits from lived experience, local knowledge and trusted relationships, while creating opportunities for people whose voices may be missing from traditional consultations, panels or service feedback to influence decisions that affect them. Across our projects this year we have recruited 20 Community researchers, delivered 25 participatory research workshops through our central hub and carried out research in 6 community centres and 4 housing support settings in some of York's most deprived areas. We have interviewed more than 150 and our work has contributed to five local strategies and involved collaboration with around 10 partner organisations , helping connect community insight with organisations and decision-makers able to act on it. We are also seeing a growing role for our model of work shaping strategy, policy, service design and organisational processes, This has included contributing to the Cities drugs and alcohol strategy, welfare benefits and financial support, its approach to poverty and homelessness and resettlement. An increasing important part of this work is about accountability, how organisations demonstrate what has changed as a result of people sharing their experiences and how communities remain involved as services and strategies develop. Our Welfare Safety Net research, undertaken with the University of York and local welfare partners has explored peoples experiences of accessing benefits and support, barriers they encounter within the local safety net. Through our participatory research, people with direct experience have helped identify what works, where systems can be difficult to navigate and what could improve access and support. We have also worked with the University on contemporary poverty mapping, bringing together lived experience, community knowledge, research to understand how poverty is experienced in York today, culminating in One City, One Strategy : Ending Poverty Together which we co-designed and co-led with Rachel Maskell MP and the University. This event brought communities, lived experience, researchers, services and decision makers together to explore shared priorities for addressing poverty across the city. Our work around welfare and poverty also created opportunities for our insights to to contribute beyond York, including collaboration with DWP central system design and the House of Lords APPG on poverty. Through our Best Start in Life collaboration with City of York Council, Public Health and NIHR - our research team are exploring experiences of families with children aged 0-5 looking at what helps them feel connected, supported and identifying what safe, trusted, non-judgemental support looks like and navigating that. We continue our work on homelessness through an evaluation of the local Resettlement Pathway. Building on our long standing relationships with that community, we continue to seek what helps, which barriers occur and how improvement by services could look like. We have delivered trauma informed training for the University, delivered five participatory workshops for North Yorkshire's SWIFT programme, a local collaboration project exploring partnership working too Our approach across all activities is around creating opportunities for people to develop research, leadership and communication skills, building confidence and connections and to have meaningful influence over issues that matter to them. By developing our research Hub, creating opportunities for our people, strengthening accountability to services we are helping communities move from being subjects of research or recipients of services towards being active partners in understanding problems, shaping solutions and influencing change

Our stakeholders span the whole system around the issues we work on. People with direct experience of poverty, welfare benefits, homelessness, housing insecurity, mental ill-health, addiction, criminal justice system, families and residents within the communities we research in, frontline practicioners, commissioners, third sector organisations, local authority teams, universities, funders, national policy makers Stakeholders consultation is not a separate stage of our work - our model is built around live feedback loops, with listening, reflection, actions and feedback taking place throughout projects. We hold regular sessions, workshops, meetings asking whether our work is useful, accessible, relevant, what could be improved and where we need to work differently. Our community researchers create a live feedback loop which has resulted in us taking our work increasingly out to community spaces, support settings - our model shaped around relationships where people are happy We consult with partner organisations throughout projects rather than only at the end - improving clarity of roles, develop training and strengthening accountability. Our wider research allows an additional whole systems loop as we cover many issue areas - this helps lived experience continually inform how Lived Insights develops as an organisation

No remuneration was received

No transfer of assets other than for full consideration