insights
Authentic Voice Project ensuring lived experience is listened to

Samantha Keogh

Project Officer Samantha Keogh writes about the work of the Authentic Voice Project and the actions it has taken to ensure that children and families with lived experience of gender-based violence are listened to when it comes to service design.

The Authentic Voice (AV) Project ensures that local authorities and other community planning organisations have the knowledge, confidence and tools they need to embed lived experience of gender-based violence and trauma into local system and service design processes in a robust, trauma-informed and meaningful way. Since 2021, the AV Project has worked to support stakeholders across Scotland’s workforces consider actions they can take to ensure that children and families with lived experience of violence, abuse and other forms of trauma have meaningful opportunities to shape the local systems and services they engage with.

The AV Project is a partnership between three organisations:

  • SafeLives is a UK-wide charity dedicated to ending domestic abuse. They coordinate the Authentic Voice Panel, a group of women with lived experience of domestic abuse, dedicated to ensuring that survivor voice is at the heart and start of services, policy and strategy. The panel oversees and informs the work of the AV project.
  • The Improvement Service is the national improvement organisation for local government in Scotland. Their Protecting People Team offers strategic support to local authorities and their community planning partners to improve outcomes for people affected by all forms of gender-based violence and/or psychological trauma.
  • Resilience Learning Partnership (RLP) is a trauma-informed, lived experience-led education, enterprise and consultancy organisation. As part of their work, RLP have established the AV (Active Vision) Team. This team will create and contribute to the AV Project’s suite of resources.

A key element of the AV Project so far has been working with stakeholders across a wide range of policy areas to understand what support is needed to embed lived experience safely and effectively into systems and services. This engagement has predominantly taken place across a series of virtual deep dive events with stakeholders working in relevant services and policy areas. Each event has focused on exploring the key actions and support needed to mitigate commonly identified challenges and barriers to embedding lived experience. These include: risk and safety, diversity and plurality, resources and capacity, and leadership. The AV Project is using the learning from this work to develop resources that can be used by professionals working across a wide range of policy areas and services.

Key resources currently available from the AV Project:

  • In early 2022, the AV Project held a launch event which provided an overview of the background to this work and the development of the project. The report and videos from this event are available here.
  • The AV Project Discovery Report summarises learning from our initial research on how survivor voice and lived experience is currently used in organisations across Scotland.
  • The first workshop in our thematic deep dive series focused on exploring how a whole systems approach can be taken to embedding lived experience of gender-based violence and trauma into local system and service design processes. The report and videos from this event are available here.
  • Presentations from the series of deep dive workshops held in October and November 2022 can be viewed here. . The topics covered were risk and safety, diversity and plurality, and resources and capacity.
  • The Authentic Voice podcast series, produced by Resilience Learning Partnership, explores insights, thoughts and voices on embedding lived experience in service and system design across Scotland. The podcast is available here.

The Authentic Voice Project recently held an event focused on exploring the benefits of power sharing among leaders, experts by profession and experts by experience. The focus of this event was based on a number of key challenges raised by stakeholders across AV Project activities around the need for leadership buy-in, culture change, and confidence. The event was targeted to senior leaders and decision-makers and was hosted at COSLA Conference Centre and online. Attendees represented a wide range of service and policy areas, which highlighted the need for whole system working and collaboration to understand and embed lived experience of trauma and violence against women and girls (VAWG). Some of the key actions identified at the event included improving joined-up working across local strategic partnerships, exploring more inclusive co-design and collaboration within services, engaging with elected members and other leadership, and seeking opportunities to promote trauma-informed practice.

AV Project partners have also been working with Dundee City Council on a project exploring lived experience contribution and influence within local multi-agency governance and strategic planning arrangements across Dundee’s Public Protection Partnerships. The AV Project partners are supporting this with a programme of work including research, improvement planning, and facilitated sessions with leadership. We will produce learning, recommendations and resources focused on effective lived experience inclusion in strategic planning.

Key contact and information