Everyone talks about the importance of hearing people with ‘lived experience’ and we know how much wealth that brings to a conversation, project or challenge we may be tackling.

We also know there is a great deal of lived experience available, maybe a lot more than is often recognised. For example, in our recent diversity survey, over 70% of Better Way members disclosed one or more type of lived experience, for example living with mental illness, or a disability, growing up in poverty, experiencing racism or misogyny, substance abuse, domestic abuse, and so on. 

It is hugely encouraging that in recent years there has been lot more attention on the value of bringing lived experience into decision-making, service design and policy formulation.

But what actually happens in practice?  Are some types of lived experience valued more and others ignored? Are we making it easier for people to bring their whole selves into their working lives, and is the balance of power and control shifting?  Or is this all becoming yet another tick-box exercise, providing the illusion of change, while actually further marginalising ‘other’ people.

And if that is the case, for those organisations and policy makers who really do want to make a difference, what steps could they be taking?

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If you would like to reserve a place for this online meeting you can either fill out our booking form or contact us at info@betterway.network.

How to reform public services by liberating local teams to do the right thing

(This is a one-hour session plus an optional 30 minutes for extended discussion)

A lot of people, including the national political parties, are talking about public service reform. 

But many of the solutions they propose just won’t work. Forcing through efficiency measures, setting targets, implementing digital solutions, ‘engaging with’ the private or charity sectors. All this has all been tried for years now. And services have become even more dysfunctional, not less.

As we will discover in this session with systems change expert John Mortimer, better solutions are available. In several places, councils have had a go at operating very differently. They set up strengths-based locality working, with multi-agency teams, able to operate close to people in their community, with a simple instruction to discover what individual people’s circumstances actually were, and then to take action, and do the right thing, with the goal wherever possible of helping people to help themselves.

In every case, costs reduced, demand fell, and value was multiplied. 

So, we have a pretty good idea of what needs to be done, and the good news is that it doesn’t take significant resources to do it. But, as the real-life examples shared in this webinar will demonstrate, it does require an alternative ‘local by default’ approach and courageous public sector leaders who are willing to take a deep fresh look at what is really going on, and establish a different operating method for their teams.

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If you would like to reserve a place for this online meeting you can either fill out our booking form or contact us at info@betterway.network.

Who should be listened to in our national and local politics, and what needs to change to make that happen?  

 This is part of a series of events to consider how to bring alive the Better Way principle that ‘mass participation is better than centralised power’ and generate a fresh practice of everyday democracy.

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If you would like to reserve a place for this online meeting you can either fill out our booking form or contact us at info@betterway.network.

Can radical listening help to bring about improvements in health and care systems?  

 This is part of a series of events to explore what can be done to reduce health inequalities and improve social care, in our communities, and nationwide.

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If you would like to reserve a place for this online meeting you can either fill out our booking form or contact us at info@betterway.network.

Poverty Truth Commissions – the big implications

Poverty Truth Commissions bring people with direct experience of poverty into the same room as local decision makers. They do this over a sustained period, to build mutual understanding and trust, and find better ways to tackle poverty. What can we learn from this? Could this way of working usefully be applied more widely? And if so, what would have to change?

This is part of a series of meetings on ‘listening to each other’ - one of the four themes in the Better Way model of behaviour change.

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If you would like to reserve a place for this online meeting you can either fill out our booking form or contact us at info@betterway.network.

Listening well in a digital age. What are the digital methods that can build good conversations, including with those that are often left out, and allow people to develop solutions together?

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If you would like to reserve a place for this online meeting you can either fill out our booking form or contact us at info@betterway.network.

From listening to action.  How to turn listening into action, balancing the urgency of what we hear with the complexities of achieving it?

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If you would like to reserve a place for this online meeting, you can either fill out our booking form or contact us at info@betterway.network.

Why is it that some groups of people don’t get listened to properly, and what can be done about it? 

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If you would like to reserve a place you can either fill out our booking form or contact us at info@betterway.network.