Earlier this year, the Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE) released their 2025 Parks and Greenspaces State of the Market report. In it, they reported that 80% of councils believe parks are being disproportionately affected by budget cuts despite 90% recognising that lack of investment in these spaces will have health and social impacts. They also report a drop in the number of councils who believe the public should have free access to all parks.

With this in mind, we have writen a Policy & Practice Briefing that presents insights from lived experience stories about the role of parks and green spaces in people’s wellbeing, sharing policy and practice recommendations that local authorities can implement.

The evidence that has informed this briefing has come from Community Reporter stories from people who regularly access – or would like to access – parks, green spaces, and other public natural settings. We have looked at 29 stories gathered across various projects, as well as independently, between 2019 and 2025.

The briefing will be supported by an online Knowledge Exchange event, held on Monday 30th June 2025, 12pm to 1pm. You can register for the session using Eventbrite, by clicking here or on the button below.

This work is supported by Esmée Fairburn Foundation.

Systemic racism continues to underpin the experiences of people from Global Majority communities in the UK, yet they are not listened to. This is highlighted by contradictions between the lived experience of racialised people, and the claims of the previous government that systemic racism does not exist in this country.

With this in mind, and in partnership with the Co-Production Collective, we have writen a Policy & Practice Briefing on the lived experiences of racism in professional settings, and the way in which they are not being listened to or truly heard. This is symptomatic of predominantly white organisations, operating in predominantly white spaces, continuing to uphold the status quo by believing that simply being ‘not racist’ is enough, when they need to be actively anti-racist. 

The briefing presents insights from the often-unheard experiences of people from Global Majority communities in the workplace. Based on the 37 stories gathered from people from Global Majority communities in 2024, we found that systemic racism is prevalent in many professional spaces. Global Majority voices are routinely not listened to or heard by white peers, with racism in the form of microaggressions and tokenism creating a culture of power imbalance. Based on these insights, the briefing presents practical recommendations for employers – specifically those working in leadership or HR roles, as to how they can ensure Global Majority voices are heard and the manifestations of systemic racism are addressed in their organisation. 

The briefing will be supported by an online Knowledge Exchange event, held on Monday 24th March 2025, 12pm to 1pm. You can register for the session using Eventbrite, by clicking here or on the button below.

This work is supported by Esmée Fairburn Foundation.

In May this year we held our 6th Annual Community Reporter Conference in the form of a ‘hackathon’. A hackathon is a space were people can come together to explore a problem and co-create solutions. The event brought together a group of 56 experts to explore the question “How can we make lived experience storytelling practice more accessible and inclusive?”. Experts included people with lived experience of some of the issues being discussed, researchers, creative practitioners and storytellers, public engagement professionals, evaluators and workers in the third and public sectors.

The event focused specifically on how storytelling could be:

• accessible for people who do not use spoken word
• inclusive for people who are neurodivergent
• actively anti-racist

Through a series of creative and participatory activities, the attendees worked together to explore the barriers and identify solutions that were summarised in a short report. Here’s a short video overview of the day…

You can also listen to an audio executive summary of the learning report here. The event was funded and support by NCRM.

People’s Voice Media and the Community Reporter Network are committed to ensuring that lived experience stories are valued and have influence. Each year we produce an impact and learning report that helps us to see the difference our work is meeting and sets out our direction of travel for the coming year.

This year’s reports shows that we are:

• Creating brave spaces that are actively anti-racist and are spaces that people can learn about, and share, lived experience
• Influencing individuals and organisations with our anti-racist, inclusive vision
• Demonstrating the importance of lived experience in a variety of sectors
• Supporting organisations to use Community Reporting in their work and change the way they do things
• Helping people to develop new skills
• Providing platforms to people whose voices are often unheard or ignored 
• Playing our role in influencing policy and practice

Back in July, partners from the NACP project came together in Stratford, London to host the final learning festival event to take place as part of the 3 year project.

Community members, volunteers, local groups, organisers and people from across the UK came together to celebrate 3 years of the project and discuss all things Co-Production.

We kicked off the day with a group meal, sharing delicious Indian street food from Ghara – something we felt was important to do given the theme of the day was sharing our cook book which included ‘recipes’ for Co-Production.

During the first part of the event, people were invited to share their own recipes (or methods) for Co-Production, after which the project team began to present ideas and examples of projects rooted in Co-Production.

Towards the late afternoon our marketplace was opened up. Pop up activities took place throughout the venue, from collaborative collage, to community reporting, an interactive recipe wall and even a human library, people got stuck into some Co-Production themed activities.

Camerados came along and generously hosted our very own Public Living Room, which was complimented perfectly by our resident DJ and biscuit dunking competition.

Another significant part of the day was the launch our Co-Production Cook Book. This cookbook includes recipes from some of the fantastic people who adventured with us over the last three years, from Greater Manchester, the West Midlands and North East London.

We invite you to use these recipes freely in your communities and see where they take you! Please be sure to credit the authors when you do, in the spirit of Co-Production. Follow the link above to access the full cook book.

A huge thank you goes out to the project team, Ideas Alliance, Camerados, and everybody who came along to the event – your contributions and support made it a truly amazing day.

We’re now in the process of reflecting on the project, if you’ve been involved and would like to share your experiences with us – get in touch with Georgia to find out how georgia@peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk