Nothing About Us Without Us

I had a chat with someone this week for some research they're doing on lived experience. It gave me the opportunity to reflect on this report I wrote last year and whether it's still relevant.

One of the areas we explored was the opportunities that come with employing people with lived experience in your organisation. I'd go further than opportunities and say it's a necessity to engage people with lived experience in your charity's decision making, ideally in paid-for, meaningful positions throughout your organisation. This will ensure better challenge, wider sets of opinions being heard, less risk of mis-steps.

Nothing about us, without us, as the saying goes. As I've just found out, this phrase originates in Poland as a 1505 law, Nihil Novi, transferring power from the monarch to the nobility and eventually to the parliament. In English, the phrase came into use in disability rights activism in the 1990s. The print above is available on Etsy.

Blind activist, Dr Amy Kavanagh, who uses a guide dog, Ava, expresses what it's like when well-meaning people just grab her in an attempt to help in her article, Just Ask Don't Grab. A good example of people without sight loss making an assumption about what might be helpful without asking the person with the lived experience.

Campaign Bootcamp's trustees recently took the decision to wind up.

This report shares the trustees’ key insights from Campaign Bootcamp’s journey as of April 2022. They have chosen to do this in the hope that other social justice organisations engaged in anti-oppression work can learn from them and those who fund this work can better grasp the realities of this work.

The report on what led to this decision and their reflections makes for fascinating reading. And essential reading for the social justice sector.

Interesting and useful links 🖇️

I thought this advice from Madeleine Sugden on hot weather comms was useful, sharing information about keeping safe, and also the importance of framing the extreme hot weather as not something to be celebrated.

Here are five lessons for the Tory leadership candidates (and anyone really) from the Resolution Foundation. A dose of economic reality.

And the work Paramount has been doing to diversify the media industry is written up here, trying to create an organisation that reflects the real world.

Day of the Week 📆

What am I reading? 📚

I've just finished Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson which I really enjoyed.

What am I listening to? 👂

Music Made in the Middle Jamelia's excellent review of music from Birmingham and the West Midlands. From Elgar to Iron Maiden to Duran Duran, music for everyone.

Joy-giving things 😍

Gosh it's hard at the moment but let's carry on

Have a lovely weekend

Lucy

I write this newsletter because I believe in sharing progressive ideas that help us work towards a truly equal world.

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ChangeOut is created by Lucy Caldicott. You can find more about my work at ChangeOut.org. If you’re looking to have a chat about culture, leadership, purpose, equity, or a facilitated team discussion about any of those things, get in touch. You can also find me on Bluesky, Instagram, and, LinkedIn.

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