We’re twelve months into our three year Children in Need Funded project in collaboration with youth organisations across the UK. Read on to find out what we’ve been up to on our recent trip to Bristol and see where the next twelve months will take us!

Summer 2026 saw us partner with two Bristol based youth organisations: Creative Youth Network and Bristol City Youth Council. We delivered three separate workshops introducing young people to our approach to lived experience storytelling and creatively exploring social action topics such as access to education, mental health support and nighttime safety.

Creative Youth Network is a charity working across Bristol and South Gloucestershire, helping around 2,500 young people a year.  No matter what their background or circumstances, they support young people to reach their potential and live fulfilling lives. You can find out more on their website here.

Bristol City Youth Council advocates for the issues that matter most to young people and the main aim is to represent the voices of young people in Bristol. You can find out more on their web page here.

Young people first learnt about the value of stories and how they exist in many forms across culture and time. We then talked about the importance of representing ourselves and our own experience as opposed to our stories being constructed and told by someone else. The groups then created collages, written word pieces, sculptures and mind maps in response to the prompt:

Tell a story about something that is important to you. Chose a topic you’re interested in and tell us why you care about making a difference.

Themes that emerged from the creative reflections included young neurodivergent people’s experiences of education in Bristol, connecting young migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers in Bristol, platforming young artists in Bristol, young disabled people’s experiences living in Bristol and the discrepancies in support offered to civilians impacted by war and conflict.

Young people took these themes and created their own exploratory questions which will be used as discussion prompts for story gathering and interviews as the project moves forward. During the workshops the groups were able to develop their interview skills and build an awareness of safe practice, contributing their own ideas to a shared best practice guide.

Both groups are now in the stages of gathering stories in the form of recorded content and interviews using the questions they created. Once they have collected a set of findings we will work together to review the footage and pull out the key learning points from what they have uncovered.

The final stage of the training is to support young people to develop social action projects based on footage they capture – so keep your eyes peeled for more updates over the next few months to see what comes out of that work.

If you’d like to know more about this project then please reach out to Lauren@peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk and Georgia@peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk to find out more.

Ripple Effect Mapping is a hugely useful and flexible evaluation tool for those working in communities and change-making, dealing with trying to make change on social issues where benefits aren’t always immediate, obvious or tangible. As part of our recent work with Bristol City Council on the evaluation of their Community Resilience Fund, People’s Voice Media led four Ripple Effect Mapping sessions with people representing community organisations that had received grant funding for capital projects. In this blog, Lauren Wallace-Thompson, our Communications and Community Engagement Manager, gives our top 5 reasons that we love to employ this tool to support partners, communities and clients with evaluation and learning.

Does it seem a little OTT to have a favourite evaluation tool? I’ve been a researcher for over 15 years now, and to be honest, the word “methodologies” still kind of brings me out in a cold sweat. At People’s Voice Media, we spend a lot of time bigging up the importance of “qualitative” data (that is, data other than pure numbers – which could be words, feelings, pictures, videos). We collect lots of stories from individuals via our Community Reporting method, and use these to create datasets of people’s experiences in their own words. Sometimes however, we want to “zoom out” slightly, and look at the bigger picture. Where we are trying to create change in a community, a system, an organisation or on a social issue, we need a way to capture all the various ways in which an intervention has an impact.

Enter, stage right, waving a flipchart marker pen: Ripple Effect Mapping. It’s a people-powered, flexible tool for discovering what has changed. It has lots of great features, and you can find out a bit more about how the process works on our previous blog. It involves getting people together in a room with a giant sheet of paper and some marker pens, and really thinking through all the changes that have happened. In the case of the Bristol City Council work, the “intervention” was funding for capital improvements awarded to 56 community organisations or projects. But it could be anything – the results of a campaign, a change in policy, a training programme, a social action, a charitable act.

Here are 6 things that we love about using Ripple Effect Mapping for evaluation:

1. It’s collaborative

Ripple Effect Mapping is always most powerful when undertaken in groups to make the most of the “hive mind”, and to gather perspectives from different parts of an organisation. You can bring in views and ideas from senior management, volunteers, beneficiaries, trustees, project coordinators, local residents and more. Different people will have experienced the changes in different ways, and observed things others haven’t. It really makes the most of collective knowledge.

2. It gives over power to the people who understand best

Ripple Effect Mapping hands over the identification of impact to the people with the real expertise. Can an external evaluator judge exactly what changes have occurred? Can they notice subtle and unintended consequences (especially that go beyond those stated on the initial project brief, for example)? Well, maybe. But probably not as much as someone who has been embedded in the organisation, or lives in the community, and has witnessed the change first-hand.

3. It’s flexible

Sometimes evaluation markers can be set from the outset of a project – and they remain fixed. Which means that other things that change might be overlooked.

Ripple Effect Mapping starts with a blank sheet of paper, which means there’s no parameters on what can be recorded and tracked.

For this reason, we always say that it’s good for tracking:

• both postive and negative outcomes
• expected and unexpected consequences
• intentional and unintended results
• direct impacts, and others that are more tangential
• changes that have already occurred, and things that are now in progress for the future

4. It’s genuinely joyful

Of all the different sessions I deliver when facilitating with People’s Voice Media, it’s Ripple Effect Mapping sessions that I look forward to the most. For lots of organisations or community groups, it’s the first time they’ve ever stepped back and put down all their achievements and successes down on paper, and they are often both surprised and proud (rightly so!) at the impact of their work. We do always make sure as facilitators that the group spends some time considering any downsides, challenges or misfires that have occurred, but overwhelmingly these sessions are full of positivity and celebration.

5. It tells a story

A key part of our Ripple Effect Mapping sessions is where we ask participants to talk us through their maps. This really gives people the chance to process all that they’ve discovered into a narrative that shows a journey of change, improvement and learning. This in itself can be a really powerful moment for a community or organisation, where they recognise their own capacity to create change. And you know how fond of a story we are here at People’s Voice Media!

6. It can be longitudinal

Or perhaps we should make that, it should be longitudinal. With many projects, interventions or changes, it can take a long time to see the full picture of the real world impacts that are created. The old “Rome wasn’t built in a day” cliche holds especially true when you’re dealing with complex social issues or within rigid systems where change can be slow.

Ripple Effect Mapping is really useful for tracking change over time, and supporting continuous learning and improvement. We often recommend that groups repeat the Ripple Effect Mapping process at intervals both during and after a project (say every six or 12 months), or after key milestones are achieved. A snapshot immediately after a project finishes might not give enough time for the impact “ripples” to have worked through and spread out, so try doing a Ripple Effect Map again 6 months down the line, and compare the two to get a fuller picture of those longer-term impacts and changes.

“This approach to evaluation was an exciting venture for us. It has allowed us to be creative and highlight the real life impacts of our work – we often get stuck behind figures, so it’s been fantastic to bring the fund’s impacts to life. We’re already, as a team, using the REM tool in other areas of work, so this project has given us all some professional skills!” – Bristol City Council Community Development Team

And one thing we don’t love so much…

It’s messy. Oh, it’s messy. Getting the sprawling thoughts of a group of people down on paper in a limited amount of time can mean that some of those maps look like a toddler has been let loose with the felt tips. That’s okay, though – it’s all part of the process and we’re here to help hold you in the chaos. That’s why it is really helpful to have someone external to come in and facilitate the process, adding in some structure and ensuring there is time for interpretation and explanation, and then working to extract and analyse the data from the maps into useful learning and action.

If you would like People’s Voice Media to design and facilitate a Ripple Effect Mapping process to support your organisation with its learning and evaluation, please get in touch. Just email enquiries@peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk or leave us a comment below!

Thera Scotland and People’s Voice Media are using lived-experience stories to open conversations about accountability, advocacy and better support in adult social care. In this blog, project manager and Head of Team and Operations, Kath Peters, tells us more.

What does accountability in adult social care look like when it is shaped by the people who experience services first-hand?

Since January, People’s Voice Media has been working with Thera Scotland to explore this question through lived-experience storytelling; gathering people’s views on what transparent accountability means in practice.

Thera Scotland supports people with a learning disability across Scotland, helping them have more control over their support and live their lives as they choose. Funded by IMPACT, the UK centre for implementing evidence in adult social care, our project forms part of a wider effort to bring research, lived experience and practice-based knowledge together to improve frontline services.

A key aim for the work is to create space for Disabled people, caregivers and supporters to share their stories, reflect on why accountability matters, and identify how adult social care could work better for the people who rely on it.

Training Community Reporters

The project began in February with online training sessions. Participants were introduced to Community Reporting techniques and supported to start meaningful conversations with others about their experiences of adult social care. The training helped people feel more confident to listen carefully, ask open questions and capture stories in a respectful way.

Members, volunteers and caregivers then spoke with friends and family about how the lack of accountability and inefficient complaints procedures affects people’s lives and what better systems could look like. These insights were brought together in a short video, which became the starting point for a Conversation of Change event on 29 June 2026.

From awareness to improvement

A Conversation of Change event is a tool that we use to progress a project from the stage of collecting stories, to using those stories to create change. At a Conversation of Change event, excerpts from stories sharing people’s lived and living experience are used as a catalyst for discussion, reflection and practical improvement. Lived experience is placed at the centre of the conversation, rather than seen as an add-on to professional knowledge. Service providers, supporters and members of the wider community are invited to actively participate in the event, learning from the stories and thinking about concrete actions towards change.

Through the video stories, Disabled people and carers were able to express what transparent accountability means in everyday life. Topics explored included:

• how decisions are explained
• how concerns are responded to
• how people can challenge poor practice without feeling ignored or powerless

Overall, the stories demonstrated that when support works well, people are more able to make choices, build confidence and live with greater independence. When it falls short, the impact can be felt not only by the person receiving support, but also by families, caregivers and wider support networks. This showed how practical issues intersect with people’s personal and interior lives.

Conversation of Change events act as a bridge between awareness and action. By hearing directly from people with lived experience, those involved in shaping and delivering services are encouraged to think beyond broad commitments and consider what accountability looks like in day-to-day practice. That might mean clearer communication, more consistent follow-up when concerns are raised, stronger advocacy routes, or better ways of involving people in decisions about their own support.

Actions for change

IMPACT will now use the video as a conversation starter at targeted events, to help partners move from reflection to practical action. These events will invite people to look closely at what has been shared, identify the actions that matter most, and consider how to make tangible change. Raising awareness of the issues is the first step, but the events create a clear route from lived-experience insight to demonstrable change in adult social care.

By continuing to share and discuss these stories, the project keeps attention focused on the people most affected by adult social care. Community Reporting and lived experience storytelling are used to open dialogue, challenge assumptions and support more accountable, person-centred ways of working. As the work develops, the conversations begun through Thera Scotland, People’s Voice Media and IMPACT’s partnership will help shape practical actions that are informed by the realities of people’s lives.

At People’s Voice Media, our core value is that people should be able to tell their own stories, on their own terms, and those stories should be used to create understanding and influence change.

As part of Touretteshero’s Knowledge Builders programme, Isaac Samuels, Head of Partnerships and Campaigns at People’s Voice Media, is using this approach to explore an important and sometimes difficult question: what does anti-racism mean to disabled people, and how can disabled communities build stronger solidarity in challenging racism?

The project brings together Community Reporting, lived experience and co-production approaches to create opportunities for disabled people to share their perspectives and experiences.

Creating space for different experiences

Disabled communities are incredibly diverse. People’s experiences of disability are shaped by many other parts of their lives, including race, culture, class, gender, sexuality and where they live.

However, conversations about disability and conversations about racism do not always happen together.

Recent political and social debates have also highlighted difficult questions about racism, migration and the ways in which the experiences and frustrations of disabled people can sometimes become connected with far-right or racist narratives.

Rather than avoiding these difficult conversations, the project aims to create space to understand them.

The intention is not to judge people or tell people what they should think. Instead, the work asks what disabled people themselves think about racism and anti-racism, what helps or prevents people from engaging in these conversations, and what could make anti-racism more accessible and meaningful across disabled communities.

Using lived experience to create insight

This approach connects strongly with People’s Voice Media’s wider Community Reporting work.

Community Reporting supports people to tell authentic stories about their lives and experiences. These stories can then be brought together through our Insight process, where lived experience is used to identify common themes, challenges, opportunities and learning.

For this project, disabled people are being invited to contribute through a survey and shared conversations.

The aim is to reach beyond the people and organisations who are already involved in equality or anti-racism work and hear from a broad range of disabled people, including people whose perspectives may not usually be represented in research, policy or organised disability spaces.

Take part in the survey:
https://touretteshero.typeform.com/to/bxYMB5Pe

From stories to change

At People’s Voice Media, we believe that gathering stories should never be the end of the process. Stories and lived experience can help us understand what is happening in people’s lives, but they can also help communities, organisations and decision-makers think differently about what needs to change.

Once the stories and survey responses have been gathered, the project will bring the learning together to identify key themes and develop practical recommendations. The ambition is to share this learning with Disabled People’s Organisations, Disability Rights UK, anti-racism organisations and other partners and networks.

There are also plans to explore bringing disabled people and organisations together for a roundtable conversation about the findings and what action could follow. Ultimately, the project hopes to contribute to a longer conversation about how disabled communities can challenge racism while building stronger relationships and solidarity across different communities.

Help us hear more voices

We want to hear from disabled people with different experiences, backgrounds and perspectives.

You do not need to be an expert in anti-racism, disability rights or equality to contribute.

We are particularly interested in hearing from people who might not normally participate in research or organised disability spaces.

If you are a disabled person, please consider completing the survey and sharing it with others in your community.

Take part in the survey:
https://touretteshero.typeform.com/to/bxYMB5Pe

You can find out more about Touretteshero’s Knowledge Builders programme here:

https://www.touretteshero.com/2026/06/09/knowledge-builders-the-first-cohort

If you are an organisation, community group or network and would like to help share the project or contribute to the conversation, we would also love to hear from you.

Through Community Reporting, we know that change starts by listening differently. This project is another opportunity to ensure disabled people’s experiences are not simply collected, but heard, understood and used to help shape what happens next.

2025 saw the launch of a new 3 year Children in Need funded project, which will give young people the skills to use lived experience storytelling as a tool for social change.

Since launching Future Changemakers, we have partnered with youth organisations in the West Midlands and Greater Manchester to deliver Community Reporter Training and Train the Trainer workshops to young people, staff and volunteers. The groups have developed tools to tell their own stories and that of their peers and shape these into ideas for social action.

Last week concluded a series of sessions that up-skilled volunteers from Army of Kindness in facilitation techniques relating to Community Reporting. Staff and volunteers are now equipped to deliver the Community Reporter training they took part in last year. We can’t wait to see how they embed this approach to storytelling in their work.

Army of Kindness alongside West Midlands Police Cadets are the first organisations to form the foundation of the growing Future Changemakers Community Reporter Network. As we move into the 2nd year of the project we will be partnering with more youth organisations starting with Bristol and Liverpool and hope to broaden our reach and connect with more people.

If you’d like to know more about this work please reach out to Lauren@peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk and Georgia@peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk to find out more.