General Discussion

I champion for a group of people with lived experiences of being in receipt of services from the organsation I currently work for. These are people with experience of being in receipt of care and support, some people might have mental health struggles, others may have a physical disability, onset of dementia and people with a learning disability. We also invite the carers and supporters of the people we support.

The other day we attended a meeting regarding the allocation of some funding to improve our services. The group were initially a bit quiet, but with a bit of gentle encouragement they found their voices. Everyone put some really valid points across which appeared to be well received by the key decision makers. However when I met up with one persons service manager, they said I hear _____ wasnt on their best behaviour and didn't exactly endear themselves to the executive team.

This saddened me, who reported this back to the service manager? And what does that even mean? We are all adults in the room and all have a right to put our views across.

My response was actually _____was amazing, I am so glad that the group found their voices, felt safe and empowered to speak up! The manager looked shocked at my response. I hope this might have sewn the seed for change! We really do need to do better and stop using unconscious bias and tokenism!