Much of the work of the team is prodding and challenging “the system” to recognise the particular disposition and circumstances of the client group and “flex” their service offers accordingly to address need. As you can imagine, this work requires tenacity, curiosity and resilience in the face of system-designed blocks and barriers.
My job is to identify thematic issues and find avenues for escalation to encourage and support more enduring system change outcomes.
That`s why “SCAA” is such a fantastic opportunity to work in solidarity with other colleagues “ploughing the same furrow”. We are on the start of a journey and all recognise that the system, too often, has no appetite to change for all sorts of structural, psychological and contractual reasons.
Previous to my current role I was, chronologically, a journalist, a homeless hostel manager, a Prison Governor grade and a civil servant in the Ministry of Justice developing policy on criminal justice partnerships.

I work across Devon and Cornwall supporting the Housing Options teams in these areas. My role involves coordinating the activities of the Devon & Cornwall Housing Options Partnership (DCHOP) and providing a lead and focal point for housing options and homelessness prevention work across Devon and Cornwall. Amongst other things I raise awareness of homelessness and homelessness prevention activity, and its implications among agencies, organisations and institutions via briefings, presentations, seminars and joint training.
It was through my collaborative work with partners that I met a number of the members of the SCAA, I have recently been asked to join to provide an oversight of housing and share my experience of the “housing system”.
I have worked in housing, in Devon, for over 14 years, from the front line through to supervisory roles. It has long been evident to me and my teams that “the system” often lets down the people it should be there to support, both our service users and our staff. However I know how compassionate and caring the staff who work in housing are, and how they want to help their service users thrive and succeed in all aspects of their life.
During the pandemic housing staff were often at the forefront with initiatives such as Everyone In and some teams remained one of the only front line staff still operating. As a result of the increase in workload and working under pandemic conditions we saw that a lot of staff felt burnt out. Now with the acknowledged housing crisis and caseloads increasing I want to find a way to better support staff across Devon and Cornwall so that they can deliver meaningful help. I believe that by working with my colleagues in the SCAA this can be achieved.

I founded bthechange CIC in 2016, I was made aware of the fact that the criminal justice system was found wanting in certain areas and as a result was having a long-term negative impact on many concerned, convinced that there was a need for additional help and early interventions, I soon realised that without person centred support for people (particularly at the early stages), it was highly likely that individuals would not be able to move forward with their lives, and this could have a negative impact for a considerable amount of time. All our services and programmes have been designed and in many cases are delivered by expert leaders with lived experience.

We challenge wherever we see or experience things that we do not think are just or in the best interest of the people we work with. We use our voice to elevate the voice and concerns of others and to raise key issues facing the people in the criminal justice system. We are committed to being part of a positive shift within the system to better address the needs of people with multiple and complex needs and it is for these reasons that we joined the System Change Action Alliance

I’ve worked for both the NHS and within local government over the past 20+ years. I initially started as an exercise professional and then diversified into lifestyle behaviour change service provision and management. Over the last 6 years I’ve worked within Public Health at Devon County Health and our key focus is to improve health and wellbeing of the population and address health inequalities.
I’ve recognised in my commissioning role that we have tended to commission services in silo’s and that traditionally we identify health problems and then look to respond with health interventions. Through my connections with the system and spending time in the field with various practitioners I’ve learnt that we need a more compassionate and flexible approach to supporting people living with multiple adversity.
I’ve been inspired by colleagues in the System Change Action Alliance and have found a friendly group of liked minded people who have given me confidence to test some of my thoughts and provided a safe space to challenge and evolve my work.

Within my new role I am looking forward to forming strong relationships with other professionals, and those with lived experience, as together we try and understand what matters to each individual, and how the system can support them to achieve what matters to them better. Once we have those findings I’m very much looking forward to investigating what we can do collectively to help change our system so that it is designed to be able to support each unique individual effectively, and discovering how we support trialing different ways of working to create the changes that are needed within our system to create positive change for everyone.

My first experience of mental health services was as an assistance art therapist in my late teens in one of our huge psychiatric hospitals. There I witnessed the joy and power of creativity in recovery but was disturbed at the treatment, control and indignity on some of the patients I got to know. Little did I know that was to be my lived experience a few decades later and that the seeds of my own mental distress had already been sown.
I then went to Liverpool Art Collage gaining a degree in fine art sculpture and spent the next 24 years teaching art design and technology in schools. I always felt art is a means for a child’s growth and confidence in life, not just skills to impart and learn. In the workshop, children would be busy developing their own ideas, from a huge oil painting to building an aircraft to play in or making a survival adventure kit for a den.
This came to an end when it came to light that some of the children I taught had been sexually abused and I was devastated I had not realised or known and protected them. My mental health unravelled and I ended up being admitted to psychiatric hospital and eventually retired on an ill health pension and mood stabilisers for years.
Sadly no one asked, “What happened to you?” they only told me what was wrong with me.
It would be another 10 years in and out of services, trying to hint, trying to say, before meeting a mental health worker who I trusted. I finally felt safe enough to say. I gradually came to realise the shameful secret I had kept for decades was a description of my childhood sexual abuse and the devastating effect it had had on my life. I had created another world alongside my everyday life until it overwhelmed me and my means to cope went from helpful to destructive. I explored this and the need for system change in The Alcohol 'Problem' podcast
Things changed for me when I went on a group therapy programme for male survivors of childhood sexual abuse with mental health problems. I learned that I was not alone, that others felt as I do and that I was not ill. I was traumatised and healing was possible. Understanding trauma has given me a language for recovery.
After the therapy group I, along with other male survivors, realised this was the beginning of recovery not the end. Unable to get further help, we formed a support group for male survivors called moMENtum with groups in Barnstaple and Exeter.
Not long ago a man in the group who had said nothing, gave someone in the group a piece of paper and asked them to read it. It was his disclosure of sexual abuse as a young child. Silenced for over 50 years, he hoped he would get the help he had so long needed; now he is but so many do not.
Along with others, I campaign for better awareness of childhood sexual abuse and trauma- informed understanding in practice and policy. I want services to understand the importance of survivors having the opportunity to meet other survivors as part of healing.
From my own experience and men approaching us at momentum, there are many people with complex lives and trauma, bounced between services. Some are denied support in both primary and secondary care. These men tell us they need services that are human and work with them, not at them, that can provide long term support that adapts as they change and heal.
Involvements: Devon Trauma Network; Drink Wise Age Well; Pathfinder Developments Sexual Abuse and Violence Devon; British Psychological Society Working With Historic Sexual Abuse; Truth Project: Independent Inquiry Into Childhood Sexual Abuse
I don’t just want to be in meetings discussing trauma-based practice. I want to be with organisations and individuals with professional and/or lived experience working together to make it happen. That is why I am part of this alliance.

In 2018 Encompass recognised the need to work differently after seeing many of the same people cycling between services with no real solution, and so we started our journey to becoming a trauma informed organisation.
“We know that the system can often feel fractured for people with multiple complex needs, the people we support would regularly tell us that they were left feeling more traumatized post an intervention than before they accepted support.”
If we really want to support people then we must focus on building strong trusting relationships which removes a them and us approach, we must ensure that our clients are at the heart of our decisions and recognise the value of lived experience across all our services and work more collaboratively. When you start to make these changes great things can happen.