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.

The Department for Work and Pensions is reviewing Personal Independence Payment (PIP) – a benefit that shapes the daily lives of millions of disabled people across the UK. Decisions made in this review will affect how people can pay their bills, access support, move around their communities, and live with dignity. That is why we are bringing people together for a roundtable discussion, and why the voices in the room matter so much. People’s Voice Media’s Head of Partnerships and Practice, Isaac Samuels, tells us why it’s vital that we create this space.

Lived Experience Roundtable on PIP

What is it?

On 5^th May 2026 at 6pm, People’s Voice Media are hosting a 90-minute online roundtable on PIP, as a space for people to share their stories, insights, and reflections. This will help shape a response to the current Personal Independence Payment (PIP) Review led by the Department for Work and Pensions.

This session is part of the wider national Call for Evidence, and it’s really important that the voices of people who live with the realities of PIP are centred, heard, and valued.

About the space

At People’s Voice Media, storytelling is at the heart of how we create change. This space will be grounded in that, offering a supportive environment to share real experiences of PIP, including:

• What’s working and what isn’t
• Experiences of applying, assessments, and decisions
• Where the system feels unfair or inconsistent
• How experiences differ across communities and intersecting identities
• What a more human, fair, and dignified system could look like

Why We’re Holding This Space

Reviews of this scale are too often shaped by data points, policy papers, and assumptions about what disabled people need – rather than real experiences of navigating the system. We wanted to create a space where that balance is corrected. We want people who have actually applied for PIP, been assessed for PIP, appealed decisions, waited anxiously for letters, and built their lives around this support to be able to speak honestly and be heard.

The roundtable is a focused conversation around two simple but powerful questions: What is working well? What is not working so well? From small practical improvements to bigger structural concerns, every contribution helps build a clearer, more truthful picture of how PIP is functioning today.

The insights, stories, and recommendations that come out of the discussion will be carefully captured and turned into a collective lived experience response to the government’s PIP review. We will also share key themes back with participants, partner organisations, and decision-makers who can act on them.

What PIP Enables Me to Do

I want to speak honestly for a moment, because this isn’t just a policy conversation for me – it’s my life. As a disabled person living with mental health conditions, PIP is not a luxury or an extra. It is one of the quiet, essential things that makes a decent life possible. Without it, the gap between simply surviving and actually living becomes very wide.

On a practical level, PIP helps me cover the real costs of being disabled – costs that people outside this experience often don’t see. It helps me pay for taxis on days when public transport is too overwhelming, or when leaving the house at all takes everything I’ve got. It helps me keep my home warm when my body and mind need stability. It helps me buy the food that supports my medication and my energy levels. It helps me pay for the little things – noise-cancelling headphones, a weighted blanket, the right kind of lighting – that make the difference between a manageable day and a day lost to sensory overload or a mental health dip.

But the impact goes far beyond receipts and bills. PIP gives me the breathing room to look after my mental health. It means I can attend my therapy appointments without having to choose between them and my electricity bill. It means I can say no to situations that would push me into crisis, because I am not financially forced to say yes. It means I can rest when I need to rest, instead of pushing my body and mind past the point of collapse and ending up worse off.

PIP also enables me to contribute. That part matters to me. Because I have this support, I can do the work I do: advocacy, storytelling, showing up for my community. I can hold down relationships. I can be a good friend, a present family member, a reliable colleague on the days I’m well. People often frame disability benefits as something that holds people back. For me, the truth is the opposite: PIP is what makes participation possible. It is the scaffolding that lets me show up in the world.

Living with a mental health condition alongside a disability means my needs shift. Some weeks I manage well. Other weeks, everything is harder. PIP gives me the stability to weather those shifts without falling off a cliff. It gives me dignity on my hardest days and independence on my best days. It means I don’t have to justify my existence every time my symptoms flare up.

This is the reality I want the review to understand. PIP isn’t just a payment – it is access. It is safety. It is the difference between being pushed to the edges of society and being able to take my place within it. When PIP works, it works quietly in the background, enabling people like me to build a better life. When it doesn’t, the consequences are serious – not just financially, but physically, emotionally, and psychologically.

That is why my voice, and the voices of others like me, need to be in this review.

Why Lived Experience Voices Are So Important

Lived experience is expertise. No one understands the impact of a policy better than the people who live with its consequences every day. When disabled people are at the centre of conversations about disability benefits, policy becomes sharper, fairer, and more effective. Decisions made without that expertise tend to miss the mark, creating systems that are harder to navigate, more stressful to engage with, and less responsive to real need.

Centering lived experience is also a matter of principle. “Nothing about us without us” should be the minimum standard. If the government is serious about improving PIP, then the people who rely on it must be genuinely heard, not just consulted as an afterthought.

What to Expect

The space will be rooted in lived experience storytelling, and offer different ways to contribute. Your insights will directly inform a collective lived experience response to the review.

Date: Tuesday 5 May

Time: 6:00pm – 7:30pm

Location: Online (joining link will be sent once you confirm your place)

How to join: Please email isaac@peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk with any questions, or to confirm you’d like to attend, and we’ll send over the joining link and any final details.

If you have any access needs or would prefer to contribute in a different way, please just let us know. We’ll make sure the space works for you.

We are grateful to everyone who is showing up to share their story. Your voice will shape what we take to government – and that is exactly how it should be.

We have come to the end of the journey for our Amplifying Voices project, but as one participant so powerfully said, “this is not the destination, this is a stop on the journey.” Issac Samuels reflects on what the programme and its participants have achieved so far, and looks forward to the next steps.

From the very beginning, Amplifying Voices was more than just a programme. It was about creating space: space to be heard, to be seen, and to bring together racialised individuals committed to social justice and community change. Led by Isaac Samuels and Cecily Henry, the programme supported participants to develop their skills and knowledge in community reporting, while grounding their work in real-life issues affecting their communities.

Building a community of changemakers

We had over 70 applicants for the Amplifying Voices programme, which was a year-long journey of support for changemakers from Global Majority communities. The people taking part received training in digital storytelling, facilitation, and story curation, but crucially became part of a close-knit community – a diverse group of individuals united by a shared commitment to change. What stood out most was the sense of connection. Alongside their learning, the participants on Amplifying Voices supported each other, collaborated, and created lasting bonds that will continue far beyond the programme.

I came for the training, but I’m leaving with a community.

Rooted in real stories

The Amplifying Voices changemakers quickly put their new skills into action to support the causes that were important to them. Across the programme, participants led powerful grassroots projects tackling issues such as:

• Health inequalities within racialised communities
• Suicide prevention and mental health awareness
• Elevating the voices of carers from racialised backgrounds

Each project reflected lived experience, shaped by those closest to the challenges—and the solutions.

For the first time, I felt like my story wasn’t just valid – it was necessary.

Learning to amplify

Through the programme, participants developed practical skills in digital Community Reporting. These tools enabled them to:

• Change perceptions through storytelling
• Amplify messages that matter at a local level
• Build confidence in sharing their voices

As well as these valuable and effective strategies for change, what also emerged was a collective sense of purpose.

We’re not just telling stories. We’re shifting narratives that have been ignored for too long.

What we learned

This journey also highlighted important truths. Many racialised individuals are already doing vital work in their communities, but often without the support they need. This lack of support carries both emotional and practical impacts, making their work even more challenging.

We carry so much. Not just our work, but our communities. That weight isn’t always recognised.

For People’s Voice Media as an organisation, there was a lot of valuable learning too. The programme reinforced the importance of:

• Creating space for community care and wellbeing
• Recognising the emotional labour behind grassroots work
• Supporting individuals not just as changemakers, but as people

And perhaps most importantly, we learned that the path is not always easy.

Passion gets you started, but support is what keeps you going.

Looking ahead

While this chapter of Amplifying Voices is coming to a close, its impact continues. Rather than seeing this as an end point, we are using it as a moment to pause, reflect, and carry forward everything that has been built. The stories shared, the skills developed, and the connections formed will continue to grow, evolve, and shape what comes next.

Your thoughts

We’d love to hear from you:

• What does “amplifying voices” mean to you?
• How can we better support grassroots changemakers in our communities?
• What stories do you think still need to be heard?

This work was generously supported by The National Lottery Community Fund – thank you! You can follow them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

We were absolutely delighted to receive this update last week from our friends at The Equality Trust in Birmingham. People’s Voice Media have been working with the Equality Trust for the past few years to help them introduce lived experience storytelling into their work. We have trained members of the Equality Trust team so that they can deliver their own Community Reporter training. In just over 3 years, there have been a total 5 cohorts of Community Reporters, each looking at different topics focused on the realities of socio-economic inequality and aiming to impact the implementation of the Socio-economic Duty. The blog below explores the work of the most recent group of Birmingham Community Reporters, who began their project in August 2025. They recently held a workshop and film screening at the Midlands Arts Centre to share the insights they have learned from speaking to residents about their lived experiences of life in Birmingham. The event brought together residents, cultural leaders and artists to discuss how to reimagine “Brum without Barriers”. Senior Project Officer Charlie McNeill tells us more…

The Birmingham based Community Reporters on this Equality Trust project chose to look into how different experiences of accessing Arts, Culture, Entertainment and Recreation in the city can help us better understand the city’s changing landscape through a period of severe service cuts and loss of community assets, and how this impacts people from different socio-economic backgrounds.

They really wanted to be positive about the city and this was represented well in the finished film, whilst being pragmatic and honest about the challenges we are facing.

Our mobilisation event brought together some brilliant Brummies from across the city and its power spectrum, to reimagine a Brum without Barriers. We had a great day commiting to our own changes and the power we’re each going to step into to disrupt for a better city where everyone is included and able to enjoy the great wealth of culture we have to share. You can read more about the event on the Equality Trust blog.

Already this has created funding opportunities for arts activities in usually neglected parts of the city, potential for some new academic research, and has created connections between creatives to uplift queer and other marginalised voices on local community radio.

The Community Reporters Arash, Jennifer and Alev have really enjoyed their experience on this project. We’re just in the wrapping up stages now and I’m making sure they all have strong connections to People’s Voice Media and the wider Community Reporter network so that they can go on to grow their skills, connections and get involved in future projects should they wish to.

Arash, Jennifer and Alev have created a really special project capturing a really important time for our city, making some firm friendships along the way. We’re really proud of them and incredibly grateful to have had the chance to have worked with them.

We hope you enjoy the film and would love to hear what it makes you think about – Does it challenge your perceptions of Birmingham? Can you relate to any of the experiences expressed by the storytellers? What would you change in your neighbourhood to help folks feel more welcome in what’s on?