Consultancy

Lived experience & participation consultancy

I support organisations on the journey towards being grounded in the communities involved in their work and centring people with lived experience of injustices they aim to address. Drawing on grassroots organising, I work with you to shift the culture and structures that keeps power from being shared.

I don't validate tokenistic involvement, or put lived experience above all else. This work is about the complexity of all our experiences, and how they intersect with structural inequality to shape the decisions that affect our lives.

Get in touch
See recent projects

Who I work with

Types of organisation

  • Charities
  • Social enterprises
  • Voluntary groups
  • Networks
  • Funders
  • Research institutes
  • Cultural institutions
  • Public sector bodies

Working on any issue that affects people's lives — health, climate, poverty, inequality, arts & culture, education, community cohesion.

Roles I support

Senior leadership teams, and directors/managers with responsibility for areas including community engagement, lived experience, participation or co-production, as well as policy, service design & delivery, community organising, and campaigns.

Who it's for

Where you might be now

People come to this work at all points in their organisation's journey — you might recognise some of these as where you are now.

What people come to me with

  • Involving people with lived experience, but not consistently

    You've been involving people with lived experience, but without a unified approach — and want better, more justice-based practice across the board.

  • An ambitious strategy, but culture is slowing things down

    You have a strategy that centres lived experience, but the culture and existing ways of working have to change to make that strategy into reality.

  • Knowing change is needed, but not sure where to start

    You want to shift decision-making towards communities and involve more people with lived experience, but wanting to "do it right" has held you back from getting going.

  • Previous attempts at participation haven't turned out well

    You've tried, but past participation work turned out extractive or tokenistic - and you want to learn from it so you can build a better approach.

  • Slow buy-in from key people is getting in the way

    Your strategy points towards more participatory ways of working, but key people aren't bought in yet, so progress is slow and frustrating.

  • A project needs technical expertise that you lack in house

    You're setting up a piece of participatory work - from involvement to coproduction - and need someone who can plan it well, while supporting the team to learn as you go.

Depending on what you need, that might be:

Training on different types of participation, including co-production.

Reviewing current practice and producing recommendations for your next steps.

Ongoing consultancy that accompanies you on the journey.

Strategic consultation on a lived experience / participation strategy.

Designing a meaningful participatory process from the ground up.

Facilitating coproduction workshops with communities with lived experience.

Running a participation community of practice for your organisation or network.

None of this is short-term — it can't be done quickly, or in silos. I generally work with clients for anywhere between four months and several years.

How we could work together

The work takes different shapes

Recent projects

Since 2021 · Trussell

Embedding meaningful participation

Work closely with the Participation Team designing and delivering projects including: the Together for Change panel, Trussell's first lived experience panel; the Participation Champions network; Participation Practice Circles; ongoing all-staff Participation Training.

2023–24 · Macmillan

Participation Training at scale

Designed and delivered core Lived Experience Participation Training for 100 key staff ahead of a strategy process, plus bespoke sessions for the Senior Leadership Team and a vision for the Lived Experience Participation Team.

2025–26 · Independent Age

A single 'lived experience pool'

Independently reviewed the charity's current practice of involving storytellers and volunteers with lived experience, resulting in recommendations drawing on best practice across the sector to bring varied ways of working with older people in financial hardship into one approach.

Selected Works

A trusted network of collaborators

For some projects I work alongside a small network of trusted collaborators, so we can bring the right mix of expertise and lived experience to your work.

Working with others

Get in touch

Send a short enquiry telling me a bit about your organisation and what you're navigating — and we'll set up a call from there.

Send an enquiry → 
When you're ready