Leaders with lived experience have the expertise to enact change — but they need the platform to be heard. Here’s how Sounddelivery Media is helping make that happen. This article is part of the People-Powered Storytelling collaborative series.
In every community, there are leaders with direct experience of big issues facing the UK; from homelessness to modern slavery to domestic abuse. Their insights and expertise can identify solutions for lasting change, and indeed have done so in. Take Craig Jones MBE, from Fighting with Pride, whose campaign to highlight the plight of LGBT veterans who were dishonourably dismissed from the military due to their sexuality secured an Independent Review and public apology from the then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Compensation is still outstanding, but Craig’s voice helped make a difference. We know from our work with charities and leaders in the social justice sector that such important voices and perspectives are all too often unheard.
The majority of media coverage lacks the diversity of views and voices of people with direct lived experience of severe disadvantage. We know this to be true from our own work with leaders with lived experience of inequalities. All too often, these leaders shared with us their disempowering experiences of working with the media. They weren’t hearing voices like theirs, they didn’t feel represented, and they didn’t trust journalists, but their lived experiences meant they had expertise that could offer solutions to social injustices. They wanted more support to get their voices heard in the media and around the table with those that could influence change.
The 2018 Civil Society Futures Report proposed that civil society’s key role is to generate a radical shift – putting power in communities’ hands, connecting us better and humanising how we do things. This aligns with our vision at Sounddelivery Media, where we are working towards a world where lived experience voices are at the forefront of public conversation, policy and social change. We collaborate with community leaders and their networks to ensure they have the skills, confidence and platforms to drive this change.
Through listening to those we work with and their experiences with the media, we felt we were in a position to support these community leaders and effect change. In 2019, we launched our Spokesperson Network – a dynamic community of leaders with lived experience of inequality, united in using their firsthand insights to create positive change in and for their communities. Our first pilot programme was publicly crowdfunded, and then match-funded by two funders. Since that pilot, through receiving multi-year grants, we were able to scale this programme and run the nine-month programme for three years, with future plans to run our next programme in 2025.
We now work alongside a network of 43 leaders from across England who have completed this programme, working with communities addressing a whole range of social inequalities including suicide prevention, the care system, migration, young people and education, gender equality and more. We provide ongoing training, support, opportunities to speak and influence in the media and civil society, and nurture this large peer support network.
“I’ve gone from standing in the picket lines trying to shout over a sea of other voices to being able to walk in the front door and have a conversation face to face, valued conversation and they are actually listening.” - Jan Cunliffe JENGbA Spokesperson Network member
Members of our network have spoken on major broadcast news outlets including BBC Newsnight, BBC Radio Four and ITV News, and have appeared in national print newspapers including the Times, the Guardian and Independent. They have reached audiences of millions, sparked conversations and influenced public discourse including influencing storylines in drama. They have become part of policy and advisory discussions, contributing to: All Party Parliamentary Groups and governmental select committees, speaking at Party Conferences and joining advisory panels.
Anna Wardley is CEO of Luna Foundation and has been a Spokesperson Network member since 2022. Luna Foundation a social enterprise dedicated to transforming the support for children affected by suicide. We supported Anna to give a BBC Radio 4 Four Thought talk which was later featured on Radio 4’s programme Pick of the Week. She has also written for Children and Young People Now, Mumsnet and the Portsmouth News about Luna Foundation’s mission and how we can improve support for children who lose a parent or care giver to suicide.
Since taking part in these media opportunities, Anna has received dozens of communications from people saying it's made them feel able to speak about their experiences. "For me that is just incredible. I have no doubt that that programme will be a springboard for things," she says. "The type of people that would have heard that are people that really can create change."
Another member of our Spokesperson Network, Jan Cunliffe, is the co-founder of JENGbA (Joint Enterprise Not Guilty by Association), who won their legal challenge against the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to force them to collect data on race and disability in joint enterprise prosecutions. The CPS data captured in this pilot showed black people are 16 times more likely than white people to be prosecuted under the doctrine. Both Anna and Jan’s experiences show how, when our Spokespeople are equipped with the tools, confidence and the platform, they are able to share their stories and effect change on issues that have personally impacted them.
While there are many high points to doing this work, we have to be honest about the fact that being a small charity comes with its challenges – both for us and our network. There are many different demands on our time. We cannot always work in the reactive, fast-paced way news media requires. The leaders we work with are not always in the right place to respond as quickly as news cycles demand. They are facing severe cuts to their funding affecting their work, the demand for their work is leading to exhaustion and burnout, and they are often facing imposter syndrome or low self confidence due to the ways they have been treated and undervalued. It takes time to do this work, and to continue building trust between the leaders we work with and journalists, and trust between the leaders and us, too. We are guided by those we work with, use trauma-aware practices and provide holistic support – approaches we feel are fundamental to working with lived experience leaders in an ethical, safe way.
“The impact of these stories entering the mainstream of political and public debate, to share that space with properly researched and evidenced calls for change, is transformational.” - Giles Edwards, BBC Radio 4
At a time where communities feel politicians and media are not listening to them, which leads to further distrust, diversifying the voices we hear in the media and in rooms with policymakers and politicians is more important than ever. Building capacity for community leaders and organisations can have a transformational effect on their ability to influence change to tackle society’s challenges. Developing their skills and growing their confidence, dovetailed with strategic communications support, gets their voices into spaces where they can drive positive systemic change. And this visibility opens doors to further opportunities. Forming networks of these leaders creates new possibilities for collaboration, collective action, and vital peer support.
Jude Habib is a BBC trained reporter and producer with over 20 years’ experience of unearthing stories that need to be told. She founded Sounddelivery Media in 2008 to give charities and the people they support the skills and confidence to tell their stories.
This article is part of People-Powered Storytelling, a new collaborative series showcasing the transformative impact of community-centred media initiatives in the UK. Read more about the series, and the other contributions that are part of it, here.