This year, People’s Voice Media turns 30. That means that for 30 years, we have worked alongside communities to create spaces where people can tell their own stories, share knowledge, and influence change. To celebrate our birthday, we are calling people together for a week of conversation, learning and community – Stories for Change. Find out more below or book your sessions now.

We’re getting rid of conference lanyards and dry sandwich buffets this year – this is a conference you can join from the comfort of your sofa. All sessions will take place on Zoom, and will be interactive, conversational spaces with a focus on building knowledge and practice as a community of people who care about lived experience storytelling.

What will the conversations be about?

We’ve spent a lot of time over the past 30 years championing the value of lived experience stories and trying to get people in power to recognize the expertise held by people who have first-hand knowledge to share. It does feel like the rest of the world is finally catching on. However, at the same time, the culture in which stories are created and heard has transformed. Speaking about your lived experience now means engaging with a structure of digital platforms owned and controlled by billionaires, algorithmic gatekeeping, AI deepfakes, a media landscape hostile to issues of social justice, and shifting questions about who gets to speak and be believed. We are now in an age where anyone can publish their story online, yet whose voice gets heard, believed, and acted on still depends on old and unequal rules. Technology has given communities new ways of organising and connecting, but inequalities around access, power, representation, and whose stories are trusted, remain. The Zoom conversations we have across the week will centre around this question:

Who holds the power around these stories, and how do we make sure they are seen as real evidence, knowledge, and insight?

How will the week work?

We will be hosting five guided sessions across the week, taking place on Zoom from 1pm – 2:30pm each weekday. Each day builds on the learning and questions from the previous one, but all sessions will make sense as standalone events, so you can attend as many or as few as you like.

Here’s the schedule for the week:

Day 1: Monday – The Storytelling Landscape Now, 1-2:30pm

What does it mean to tell lived experience stories in the current moment? Join us for the opening provocation of our week of conversation and learning. In this 90 minute online session, we will confront the storytelling landscape as it actually is: digital access and exclusion, the rise of fake news, disinformation, AI-generated content and a public conversation pulled apart by polarisation. To set the scene for our learning this week, we name the conditions everyone telling a story now has to work within.

Day 2: Tuesday – From Problem to Possibility (A Calling-In), 1-2:30pm

How do we build community around lived experience storytelling in the face of current challenges? This is a 90-minute online reflective practice session about our collective role as guardians of stories. Where Day 1 names the problem, Day 2 turns towards the solutions. This is a calling-in space for building a movement that protects and champions lived experience storytelling, and for asking what the community needs to do to advance storytelling in the face of everything named the day before.

Day 3: Wednesday – Showcase: How Community Reporting Makes the Difference, 1-2:30pm

What can we learn from recent projects employing lived experience storytelling? A showcase of real examples of how People’s Voice Media and partners’ work happens. In this session we’ll explore the difference Community Reporting can make through three case studies of lived experience storytelling in practice.

Day 4: Thursday – Mobilising Knowledge, 1-2:30pm

How does learning from lived experience stories get transformed into real-world change? This session explores what happens once the data is gathered – how does community knowledge connect to research, policy, commissioning, services and campaigning – and what are the blockers to success in this area?

Day 5: Friday – Celebration and Community Commitments, 1-2:30pm

A birthday bash with a difference. We’d love you to join us at the end of our week of learning and conversation in a special Friday session to celebrate 30 years of People’s Voice Media. This is a collection of human stories – voices from People’s Voice Media’s history, Community Reporters, partners and the grassroots. We will also share insights and findings from the Gobby Community Reporter survey and what we’ve learnt across the week. We will close by agreeing commitments that the community will carry forward together.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I have to attend every session? No, just book on to the ones you are interested in or able to attend. Although the sessions are designed to “speak” to each other across the week, the content, learning and discussions should also stand alone.

Can I attend all the sessions? Yes, absolutely, we’d love to have you join us for the full week. Just make sure you register for each session separately.

How do I book? You can choose your sessions and book via the events page on the Community Reporter website.

Do I have to pay to sign up? No, all sessions are completely free to attend.

I have access needs, how will you make it so I can join in the sessions? Drop us an email enquries@peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk and let us know how we can make it easier for you to participate in the session. You don’t need to have a diagnosed disability to do this – just an idea of what we can do to support you or an access problem that we can try to solve. We will also send out a communication nearer the event to ask people about specific adaptations.

Can you cover personal assistant costs or other attendance costs? We have some budget put aside to support people who would otherwise not be able to join in the sessions – please get in touch with enquiries@peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk to discuss this.

Why is the conference online? We know that sometimes people who would like to attend our annual conference face barriers because of travel, accessibility, cost, caring responsibilities, geography and people’s different circumstances. Moving online for this year gives us a chance to experiment with a way of meeting up that removes some of those barriers. However, we know that online does not automatically mean accessible. Running an event digitally can also exclude some people or present difficulties, and we are trying to work with everyone attending to make sure we put in place as many things as we can to open up participation and adapt things to suit as many people’s needs as possible. If you have an idea for anything that would support towards this aim – please do let us know by emailing enquiries@peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk.

What will happen after the event? We don’t want these conversations to end there. We’ll be taking the learning into the year ahead, and using it to inform our planning, combined with the things we find out from the Gobby survey that is running alongside the event.

What topics will be discussed and how are you looking after people’s psychological safety?
Some of the conversations during the week will explore sensitive and personal issues around social justice, lived experience, power, and inequality. Where we think there are potential triggers, the facilitators will give notice about this before and during the session. All sessions will be run according to our anti-racist principles and guidelines for communication. We will share details of relevant support organisations during each session, and encourage people to participate in ways that feel right for them.

How can I contribute to the discussions? We want to make sure that everyone can contribute in a way that feels comfortable for them. This might be – through talking in a large group, contributing in a breakout room, writing your thoughts in the chat, using tools such as Flinga or Mentimeter. If we use any additional online tools, we’ll always do a demo first to show people how to use them, and if you’re struggling, please do ask the team for help!

Who will be facilitating the sessions? The sessions will be facilitated by members of the People’s Voice Media team, alongside co-producers from the Community Reporter Network. Some workshops will also have special guests from our projects or from other organisations connected to our work.

I have another question not covered here. If you’ve got a question – there’s a good chance other people have too! Please email us enquiries@peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk or leave a comment below and we’ll get you the answers, and update this guide too.

Black History Month is a time to recognise the contributions Black people have made, and continue to make, to the world. It also asks us to look at how history is told. Whose experiences are recorded? Whose knowledge is recognised? Who has the power to decide what future generations will learn? These questions connect directly to our work at People’s Voice Media. Lived experience storytelling creates opportunities for people to share what matters to them and use that knowledge to influence change. This October, we want to make space for Black joy, with Black people deciding for themselves what that means and what they want to share. As a kickstarter to this, one of our Community Reporters, Debora, had a chat with Aida, a story development specialist and audio producer and co-founder of audio documentary production company Fathom Sirens, about what Black History Month means to her, the people who inspire her, and why Black joy is so important.

Recognising the people who shape our world

Black people have shaped science, medicine, literature, politics, education, technology, sport and the arts. Their contributions are woven into the world we live in.

Katherine Johnson’s mathematical work helped advance space exploration. Mary Seacole cared for soldiers during the Crimean War. Toni Morrison and James Baldwin expanded literature and public conversations about identity, belonging and power. In Britain, Claudia Jones brought together campaigning, journalism and community organising.

Each of these people had their own ideas, experiences and ambitions. Recognising their work means taking the time to understand their individual contributions and the circumstances in which they made them.

Recognition also belongs to people whose names rarely appear in history books: researchers, workers, campaigners, carers and neighbours whose efforts shape everyday life. Some challenge institutions. Some build organisations. Others make a difference through relationships and acts of care that may never receive public recognition.

People’s dignity and right to belong do not depend on exceptional achievement. We can celebrate contributions while recognising that every person deserves respect, whether or not their work wins an award or becomes part of a history lesson.

Community Reporting Spotlight: Hear how Aida’s inspired everyday by different people – in particular, she discusses some of her heroes in the cultural sphere – comedian Josh Johnson, playwright Suzan Lori-Parks, and actress Anna Deavere Smith.

Storytelling connects history with the present

Across generations, Black people have recorded and shared their experiences through oral histories, writing, journalism, archives, art and community conversations. These different forms of storytelling help preserve knowledge, question official accounts and make experiences visible.

There is no single Black history or way of telling it. Black communities include people with different cultures, faiths, nationalities, identities and relationships to place. Their stories may overlap, disagree or offer quite different understandings of the same event.

That matters in our work. An individual’s experience deserves to be heard in its own right. Nobody should be expected to speak for an entire community.

Community Reporting builds on the value of people sharing knowledge about their own lives. It also asks us to consider what happens after a story is heard. Does it change a decision? Does it influence a service? Does the person who shared it have a say in how it is used?

Community Reporting Spotlight: How Aida sees Black History Month through the lens of her international experiences and the narratives that her daughter experiences in a British primary school.

Making space for Black joy

Black joy is for people to define for themselves. It may be connected to achievement, friendship, creativity, rest, love or the freedom to make choices about their own life. It may be something deeply personal that a person chooses to keep private.

“I think Black joy is critical. I think of it as one of the many ways of moving through the world where the focus is not on pain. The pain never goes away, but it’s what you perform and sometimes performing happiness, performing whimsy, and the freedom to take up space. All of these things I think of as interlocked with Black joy, and I also think of Black joy really intersectionally.” – Aida Holly-Nambi

We do not need to arrive with a ready-made picture of what joy should look like. We can make room for people to tell us, if they want to.

Black disabled people, Black LGBTQI+ people and people whose experiences are less often recognised should have opportunities to share all the parts of their lives that matter to them. That includes pleasure, ambition, humour and possibility, as well as experiences of exclusion.

There should be no pressure to share trauma, perform happiness or turn a personal experience into a lesson for somebody else.

Community Reporting Spotlight: Why is Black joy important? Aida tells us her perspective.

Recognising the people who make storytelling possible

Our work depends on the people who choose to share their experiences, the Community Reporters who listen and the community partners who help build relationships. Their time, knowledge and care deserve recognition.

Making space for stories means paying attention to consent, accessibility, fair recognition and people’s control over what they share. Listening should lead to thoughtful action, with communities involved in deciding what that action looks like.

These responsibilities continue beyond October. We can recognise Black knowledge throughout the year, support Black leadership and examine whose voices influence our organisations.

Community Reporting Spotlight: Aida ponders whether Black History Month can change minds, referring to some of the conversations in the cultural space between  African Americans and East Africans in the mid-20th century that were the focus of her PhD research.

Share your story of Black joy

We want to make sure that stories of Black joy and Black histories are narratives that we hear year-round, not just in October. Do you have a story of Black joy that you would like to share? It might be about your own life, someone whose contribution matters to you or a moment you would like others to understand.

We would love to hear from you. Get in touch with People’s Voice Media at enquiries@peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk to explore how you might share it and what support would help you take part.

People’s Voice Media is a UK-based charity focused on using lived experience for social justice.

We want to grow our freelancer network and build new relationships with talented digital producers from Global Majority, LGBTQ+ and Disabled communities.

We are looking:

🎨 to work with people who will bring different experiences, perspectives and creative approaches to our work.

♿️ to make sure our freelance network reflects the communities we work alongside and helps us create strong, relevant, accessible content.

🫱🏾‍🫲🏽 to create opportunities to work together long-term

Could you help us with:

📹️ 🎙️ Producing videos, podcasts and/or other digital content?

🫶 🏘️ Working collaboratively with communities and outreach groups?

If you are a community-minded digital creator who is passionate about social justice, we’d love to hear from you.

Our organisational goals and our hopes for the future of our work depend on us building a more inclusive, representative and accessible organisation that works meaningfully with the communities we support, and these relationships will be a key part of that.

At this stage we are just after informal expressions of interest. Please email Kath, our Head of Team and Operations, with a couple of paragraphs about your work experience, skills and knowledge. If you’d prefer to submit this as a video or voice note, or any other format for accessibility purposes, that’s absolutely fine. Please send submissions over to kath@peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk … we look forward to hearing from you!

Our goal at People’s Voice Media is to use lived experience stories to change the world. One of the key ways in which we can do that is through building and supporting a movement of lived experience storytellers. In the run up to our conference, we’re asking anyone and everyone who works with lived experience stories to fill in our survey to help us get a better understanding of the challenges people face and what solutions we might be a part of. In this blog, Communications and Community Engagement Manager, Lauren, explains why we’re asking these questions, why now, and how you can help.

My role as Community Engagement Manager is a new one at People’s Voice Media, and, for me, the starting point for understanding how I do my absolute best in this job is to ask questions and listen to the answers. The world around lived experience storytelling is full of passionate, dedicated and frustrated people, who are often juggling competing demands on their time and energy. This is true of a mother fighting to get support for her autistic daughter who is struggling to feel safe attending school. It is also true of a NHS middle manager who wants to make the service they provide more person-centred, but is hampered by budgets and dismissive senior staff. We appreciate that most people don’t end up in this arena unless they care deeply about other people and about making things better. 

So the big question in my head is: how can we support people to do that? Whatever we deliver, I want it to be absolutely the thing that helps people take their work or their advocacy forward. Of course, what that looks like will be different for everyone and their own individual circumstances and goals. But it is also crucial that we link people to build a community and a movement around lived experience storytelling. Doing a survey in this way helps us see common areas where we might step in to provide that extra training, support or expertise that will help people progress the change they are trying to make.

I’ve already had informal chats with people during our online Community Reporter Catch-Ups and skills sessions, but this survey is an attempt to formalise a bit of that learning and reach a wider range of people. In particular, those who aren’t able to, or haven’t been attracted to come to our events for whatever reason.

About the survey

Surveys aren’t generally how we work here at People’s Voice Media – we are always championing methods that give in-depth responses in people’s own words.

Gobby surveys are a little different to your standard tick-box response form, though. They allow free-text answers, so you can answer in your own voice. They also allow us to work a little bit with “the wisdom of crowds”, because when you are filling in a Gobby survey, you can find answers from other people that “match” your own, and give those answers your support too.

Here is a video from Gobby explaining a bit more about how their surveys work:

Ready to join in? Click here to complete the survey, or read on for more information.

What am I being asked to do?

Take our short survey over on Gobby, which contains 10 questions and should take about 15 mins to complete. You can complete it on a phone, tablet, or computer

The survey asks questions about:

• how you are using lived experience storytelling and the issues you care about
• how we can support you and what skills would you like to develop
• how we can make our support and communications more accessible to you
• creative and alternative ways of lived experience storytelling
• making sure we don’t cause harm or re-traumatise people in our work

Why should I take part?

We do have a carrot for you – everyone who takes part has the option to be entered into a prize draw to win a £50 gift voucher.

However, even if you’re not the lucky winner, we will actively use these answers to plan the activity and support that we offer to our network and community in the future, so if you’ve ever thought something like:

• “I wish People’s Voice Media would do a session on this topic.”
• “It would really help me if I could build some skills in writing policy briefs.”
• “I wish I could go to that catch-up, but lunchtimes don’t work for me at all, I’d rather meet in the mornings.”
• “I keep missing the advertising of these events because I’m not on Facebook.”

Or similar, then now is your chance to influence the direction of People’s Voice Media’s support.

Who can take part in the survey?

Anyone who works with or is involved with lived experience storytelling – in the broadest sense. You might be:

• a trained Community Reporter
• someone campaigning for change based on their own lived experience
• a professional whose role involves hearing and acting upon people’s lived experiences
• a community organiser or activist on an issue that affects people
• an academic with a research interest in lived experience methods
• someone with lived experience trying to get their voice heard

If you are interested in lived experience storytelling in any capacity, we’d love to hear from you. You don’t have to have worked with or engaged with People’s Voice Media before.

Also, if this applies to you, you might also be interested in attending some or all of our Stories for Change week of conversation and learning! 

I’m interested in the results – will you be sharing them?

The survey is being run to tie into our week of conversation and learning, Stories for Change – you can find out more about that in our blog here. This will run from 23rd-27th November and the results from the survey so far will be fed into the discussions held in these sessions, and summarised in our Day 5 Celebration and Community Commitments workshop. We’d love to see you there to expand on the answers or reflect on other responses. You can book onto all the events that week here.

If you have any more questions or would like to chat more, please drop me a comment below or email enquries@peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk

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.