Creating social change through lived experience: Ted X Staffordshire University
Ted X Staffordshire University: Thinking Through Making
Our very own Darren Murinas, CEO of Expert Citizens CIC, delivered a powerful TEDx Talk as Staffordshire University hosted the prestigious event this month. Over one hundred people listened to eight creative thought leaders speak on the theme of thinking through making at the Catalyst Building in Leek Road.
Darren’s journey is not that of a typical CEO.
For eleven of Darren’s childhood years, he was brought up in the care system. After a poor experience and falling into addiction as a young adult, he ended up serving more than four years in prison. Darren hoped that prison would be an opportunity to get his life back on track but found that there were not the opportunities for education he had imagined, often spending twenty-three hours a day locked in his cell. While serving his sentence he had an epiphany that his lived experience might be a useful asset to help others avoid or recover from making the same mistakes.
His hopes for a new life were initially shattered when he was released from prison homeless and found himself on the streets of Stoke-on-Trent. As a partially sighted person, life on the streets was particularly daunting prospect. Eventually, Darren found the support he needed through a local charitable organisation and set about making his epiphany a reality.
In 2013, Darren seized the first opportunity that became available when he was invited to be part of a focus group. A local partnership of organisations that were applying for funding to the National Lottery and convened a group of people with relevant lived experience. Working with others, he helped the partnership pull together a bid for a programme to support people in Stoke-on-Trent experiencing combinations of homelessness, mental ill-health, addiction, and contact with the criminal justice system. The bid was successful and attracted £10m over eight years to Stoke-on-Trent. People with lived experience, were central to the design, delivery, governance, and evaluation of the programme. Darren joined the Partnership Board for the project and the focus group named itself Expert Citizens.
A key element of the work undertaken, was to understand what good quality services looked and felt like for people who were experiencing social exclusion and poverty. Expert Citizens set about designing a quality framework to assess how well organisations involved people in the design, delivery, and evaluation of services. The result was a quality framework called Insight and an annual awards event that identified examples of positive practice to celebrate then share.
This achievement gave Darren and his colleagues the confidence to incorporate Expert Citizens as a community interest company in 2016. Their aim is to help organisations engage better with people facing social exclusion to drive continuous improvement for a better customer experience. In partnership with Keele University, the Insight quality standards are currently being adapted for the context of public involvement in health and social care research. Going from strength to strength the Insight Awards have attracted high profile speakers with lived experience of social exclusion. This includes celebrated poet Lemn Sissay MBE as well as best-selling author and campaigner Sammy Woodhouse.
You can see a short highlight video of an awards event here
Building on earlier work, this year Expert Citizens CIC have launched their Insight Academy which coproduces learning experiences for staff, volunteers, and managers. A range of learning opportunities have been designed to increase the knowledge, skills, and empathy of those likely to encounter people experiencing social disadvantage and poverty in their work. People with lived experience often co-deliver the courses which adds to the richness of the leaning.
Expert Citizens CIC are also collaborators in research and evaluation projects as a civic partner with Staffordshire University. This had led to citations as co-authors in several academic publications and evaluation reports. As a result of skills and confidence rediscovered through volunteering and working with Expert Citizens sixty people have found employment or moved into adult education.
Darren and Expert Citizens CIC worked with a wide range of local partners in 2020 to develop a proposal for central Government that helped to attract a further £4m to Stoke-on-Trent. Darren is now the Chair of the Partnership Board and is helping to steer the programme, supporting people experiencing social disadvantage, which is being delivered by Stoke-on-Trent City Council with partner organisations.
Darren said,
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.14.6″ _module_preset=”default” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column _builder_version=”4.14.6″ _module_preset=”default” type=”4_4″ theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_video src=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyY4gZg25h8″ _builder_version=”4.14.6″ _module_preset=”default” theme_builder_area=”post_content” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″][/et_pb_video][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.14.6″ _module_preset=”default” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column _builder_version=”4.14.6″ _module_preset=”default” type=”4_4″ theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.14.6″ _module_preset=”default” theme_builder_area=”post_content” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]“Speaking at TEDx for Staffordshire University was a tremendous honour and I’m grateful to the panel for the opportunity. Since Expert Citizens started, we’ve helped to attract significant funding to support people in Stoke-on-Trent. We’ve also developed some useful services built on the value of lived experience that have been shaped with our partners. Thinking through those services while we made them alongside people with lived experience. Our work has featured on TV and Radio, in The Guardian, and we’ve spoken in Parliament to amplify voices of lived experience in policy making. Recently, we sat on the Kerslake Commission into homelessness and rough sleeping, and I’m excited about how we can help in the context of health and social care research. We’re also keen to explore further opportunities to work with the private sector to help generate wider understanding and empathy for people experiencing social exclusion.”
To find out more about Expert Citizens CIC contact us via email at: info@expertcitizens.org.uk
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