Thames Valley Liaison and Diversion/ Reconnect

Thames Valley Criminal Justice Liaison & Diversion (CJL&D) was formally commissioned by NHS England (NHSE) in 2018. A business case was submitted to NHSE to establish peer support (PSW) roles to enhance engagement with hard-to-reach groups and service user involvement forum to robustly represent this client group to develop the service.

Since this time the service has also developed and implemented the Reconnect Service (care after custody).  This has involved working in partnership with the Aspire organisation which has led to a peer support offer across Thames Valley. 

The Lived Experience Charter is of importance to the organisation and we hope to achieve recognition for the hard work and achievements we have made.  The charter will enable us to showcase our achievements and learning and network further with organisations embarking on a similar journey.  For our PSW we have been able to demonstrate to our clients that it is possible to take the journey through to recovery and employment and furthermore progress and develop into further roles.  This we can demonstrate and evidence by sharing the stories of those that have joined the service and have progressed through our peer support apprenticeship offer, onto further roles.

Charter status would raise the profile of Lived Experience (LE) within Liaison & Diversion and Reconnect, enhance good practice being developed and delivered and will demonstrate the importance of having LE within the multi-disciplinary team. It shows positive and successful practice within the service which would help other departments within the NHS trust to recognise and endorse.

Finally, we would like to use this opportunity to endorse the fantastic work those with Lived Experience provide, the incredible levels of engagement with the clients they achieve and the stories they have to tell which they skilfully use and share with clients, partners and stakeholders which demonstrates the power LE brings to service delivery.

Birmingham Liaison and Diversion

The Birmingham L&D team, currently work in partnership with Shelter to employ individuals with lived experience. The richness that this cohort of staff bring to the service and the lives of the individuals is very important in both meeting the needs of patient group, with building rapport and engagement to meeting the service specification.

As a service we work closely with Shelter through the recruitment process and subsequent induction of peer mentors as they begin their journey into employment and with us as a team. This has enabled people with lived experience to be able to access employment and education and remove some of the barriers that they faced.

In addition, we employ a Recovery Lead. This is a unique role which allows this individual to share their own experiences of services with clients and explore/promote lived experience within the Trust and community.

Our previous peer mentors who were our 1^st cohort set up a prison pathway which was co-produced and co designed with service users, the prison service who are in substantial roles in the L&D Service and has been delivered in collaboration with our Lived Experience STR workers.  We want to build on this and develop further.

The richness and rawness that this can bring is second to none. For the most complex, challenging, entrenched individuals we support without people with lived experience (PwLE) they would never have engaged with our service. We also believe as a service the importance of equal voice in shaping the service structure as well as service delivery from a strategic perspective by participation in Board meetings as well looking how to address health inequalities for the service to fit for delivery and the importance of co-production.

We will as we have seen the benefits of recruiting individuals PWLE in to part of service delivery for the past 5 years and the benefits is that we have set up additional pathways to service delivery and helped with career progression and we as a service that we live and breathe the lived experience charter. The barriers often have been to get the PWLE in to leadership roles but we are exploring ways having that embedded and are at early stages of that but we are passionate in seeing ways of achieving that as a collective

Emma Masiyiwa

Service Manager

Black Country Liaison and Diversion

Specific Peer roles are new to Black Country Liaison and Diversion Teams.  We have a 0.5 peer lead for Volunteers and a 0.5 lead for Employed peers who are subcontracted via a local Voluntary organisation ‘The Good Shepherd’. We recently recruited three peer workers to embed into our service and the community volunteer service via interview in September 2022. 

Peers will use their lived experience to work in the team, co-produce services and work with individuals to enhance engagement, confidence and outcomes for those needing a different perspective towards their journey. They’ll be integral to embedding peer working in the trust, community, team and as part of an individual’s care offer.

Dependant on our tender outcome we will grow this service to a larger volunteer and substantive team and wider opportunities for individuals in close partnership with IPS employment support to continue their growth in confidence, skills and careers.

We will achieve opportunities for individuals by providing a pathway into work which is engaging and assists the peer to grow and flourish and to enhance provision available for our service users who need the expertise and confidence of those with this unique toolkit of knowledge and skills.

Dawn Homer

Service Manager

Black Country Liaison and Diversion Services

Greater Manchester Integrated Health and Justice Services

Initially we are looking to seek Charter Status for our Community and Non-Custodial Health and Justice (H&J) Services. We envisage and will take the necessary steps to ensure that this will have a positive impact on the wider culture and help promote the value of people with lived experience (PWLE). 

Our Greater Manchester Mental Health (GMMH) Together Strategy includes the increase of PWLE across all our services and is supported by policies and procedures.  We have a well-established Recovery College and have been part of the national apprenticeship trailblazer group. 

The Lived Experience Charter will support the trust and community to overcome challenges, stigma, and barriers when people are applying for a job with a criminal background. Having Lived Experience Charter Status will promote the following: 

• The ability to engage with and form trusted relationships within our workforce
• The value of role modelling and promoting recovery as an achievable and real concept
• Development of confidence and new skills within our trust.
• The sharing of their own lived experience to shape service development
• An increase in the validation of experience particularly emotionally challenging topic
• Opportunity to understand and support the avoidance of both internal and external discrimination
• An opportunity to PWLE to not only participate but steer service development and delivery of services
• The enablement PWLE to challenge discriminatory practice, language and stigma
• Delivery of our service with trauma informed service approach

Hampshire Reconnect

At Hampshire Reconnect we support people who are leaving HMP Winchester pre and post release, with a view to helping them maintain health gains made during their sentence and reduce re-offending behaviour through utilisation of social prescribing measures. We also aim to improve their access to health and support services, liaising with a range of agencies to provide a co-ordinated response and continuity of care. An important factor in the support we provide involves our peer support worker who has lived experience of the criminal justice system, providing our service users with some 1:1 support from someone they can relate to. Enabling the service users to see the possibility of recovery and how this can lead to employment and further development opportunities. We are looking at creative ways to recruit two more Peer Support Workers into the services.

The Lived experience Charter is important to the organisation, as we endeavour to create a continuity of service across our trust with our colleagues who are also embarking on this journey from the Thames Valley Region. The Lived Experience Charter will enable us to raise the profile of Peer Support Worker (PSW) roles within Liaison & Diversion and Reconnect, demonstrating the importance and standards that the organisation places on these roles. This will help support us to engage, recruit, retain and progress people with lived experience, continually developing our internal pathways of progression.  Partner Organisations would be able to recognise the status given to those with lived experience and importantly it will allow us to grow as a service and organisation having those with lived experience help shape future services. People may be more inclined to want to work with an organisation that is part of the Lived Experience Charter, and this could potentially increase recruitment and lead to more opportunities for our PSW’s. 

Additionally, we would like to utilise this opportunity to demonstrate the value of lived experience workers and the vital role they play within not only our service delivery, but our chance to make a real difference to our service users.

Lincolnshire Secure Unit

Lincolnshire Secure Unit (LSU) Healthcare Team provide a specialist service to the children and young people residing at LSU for mental health, physical health, substance misuse interventions and psychological therapies. 

LSU has provision for up to 12 children and young people between 10 and 18 years of age who may have experienced various forms of abuse, display a wide variety of associated trauma related behaviour(s) and who may be the subject of appropriate legal orders.  There are two types of placements:

Youth Justice Placements - The Youth Custody Service (YCS) will place children and young people in the Unit who are either on remand or serving a sentence for criminal behaviour.

Welfare Placements – children and young people on a welfare placement are not sentenced but they require secure accommodation to guarantee their safety and welfare or to prevent them from causing harm to other people.

The on-site LSU Healthcare Team consists of Team Co-ordinator (Nurse Specialist), Psychiatry, Psychology, Mental Health Nurse, Occupational Therapist, Substance Misuse Nurse, Physical Health Nurse Practitioner, Speech and Language Therapist, Administrative support and hopefully from April 2023 we will have a Resettlement Worker within the team. All these services will work seamlessly with wider LPFT services, Lincolnshire Community Health Services, Sleaford Medical Group (SMG) as the GP providers, Specsavers as the optometry and Community Dental Services as the dental providers.

Lincolnshire Partnership Foundation Trust (LPFT) currently employ people with lived experience in a mental health peer support role.

Alongside the Healthcare Team, the remaining staff at LSU are employed by Lincolnshire County Council in various roles within the Unit. We have a Senior Management Team, two of whom are responsible for recruitment. The care staff team work directly with the children on a day-to-day basis. Our Case Management Team oversee care planning and review, resettlement and interventions. We also have an on-site Education provision. Currently, the recruitment process doesn’t actively explore whether candidates have Lived Experience, this may not become known until interview/DBS stage. Some of the current staff have Lived Experience of the care system.

We feel that by looking at employing People with Lived Experience (PwLE) at LSU, it will add another level that we can get the children to engage with. We also feel that the role of people with lived experience (PwLE) will work closely with the Resettlement Worker that we hopefully will have in place by April 2023. By applying for the Lived Experience Charter Status, we would hopefully be giving ourselves standards that we would need to commit to, support with change in organisational structures to employ people who may not necessarily have the same opportunities as others. Alongside the reasons noted above, it will also give the children that we care for hope and reassurance that there are opportunities for them when they leave the secure establishment.

Lancashire & Cumbria L&D Reconnect

The Lancashire and Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust (LSCFT) Liaison and Diversion (L&D) service currently delivers an all-age service across all sites available to all points of intervention in the youth and criminal justice pathways in Lancashire and Cumbria. The Liaison & diversion introduced the peer support/lived experience element to the service in 2020 and underpins the learning for the service Reconnect.  Our application is for both services for the lived experience charter. We feel that we wouldn’t be where we are in an established Peer support model without L&D and the Lived Experience Charter would give the just recognition of the work achieved.  Reconnect is a new service which is having to overcome other challenges that we have managed to overcome with L&D, and we feel that we would be in a stronger position with L&D being part of the Lived Experience Charter as a sole application or alongside Reconnect.

Red Rose Recovery is a lived experience recovery organisation (LERO) and is the chosen provider, subcontracted to provide peer support workers (PSWs) within the Liaison & Diversion and Reconnect Care after Custody service. The service wants to create a diverse workforce with different skills knowledge, and experiences to enable us to meet the needs of individuals coming through these criminal justice pathways and reduce reoffending. Although there are some different considerations operationally between L&D and Reconnect (for example vetting processes), developments within the opportunities for people with lived experience are considered jointly across both services.

The Lived Experience Charter will help promote and maintain a culture where people with a lived experience are more fourth coming in applying for such roles. Some existing staff were initially recruited to PSW roles, and through their efforts, skills, knowledge and abilities and the support of both organisations, including access to training opportunities have progressed to Practitioners, assistant Practitioner, and Support workers within the NHS. We feel that being a part of the Lived Experience Charter will enhance this provision and support our aspirations of normalising an inclusive workforce. We hope a service like Liaison & Diversion and Reconnect being part of the charter will hopefully influence system change and encourage other services to value lived experience.

BHRUT

Under the leadership of our Chair, Jacqui Smith and Matthew Trainer, our Chief Executive we provide care for the residents of three of the most diverse London boroughs. More than half of our 7,500 strong workforce are from black, Asian and minority ethnic groups and most live in Barking and Dagenham, Havering and Redbridge. We also provide healthcare services to people in south west Essex, and specialist neurosciences services to the whole of the county.

Our services include all the major specialties of large acute hospitals, operating from two main sites - King George Hospital in Goodmayes and Queen’s Hospital in Romford. We also provide outpatient services at Brentwood Community Hospital, Barking Hospital, Loxford Polyclinic and Harold Wood Polyclinic. We have two of the busiest emergency departments in London.

In 2022, we were proud to be part of the pilot phase of the Lived Experience Charter and delighted to achieve a Silver Award.  As we move into 2023, we are applying again and are hoping to be able to demonstrate the progress we have made this year in welcoming and supporting people with lived experience into our organisation.  We are committed to removing barriers and opening up real opportunities for people with lived experience to access volunteering, education and employment across our hospitals. 

HMYOI Feltham

The CNWL HMYOI Feltham Wellbeing Team is a multi-disciplinary mental health team that provides support for young people and young adults aged 18-21. We provide a range of interventions and work in a trauma-informed approach to provide system wide support across the prison too. The Lived Experience Charter is a fantastic initiative and to be part of the pilot sites process has been a huge privilege. We want to ensure that the value and expertise of those with lived experience is championed in the CNWL Wellbeing team at HMYOI Feltham and across the prison as a whole. This will be made possible by the fantastic work that is already being done by the Peer Support team in the CNWL trust, who have developed a clear pathway of career progression for people with lived experience, and the necessary support structures to achieve this. In addition, we are working alongside a Peer Support Worker to embed this position into the team. We are also working towards health and wellbeing champion roles for young adults and young people in Feltham. We are learning from community partners, such as Peer Power, to develop co-produced groups alongside young people, with a particular focus on hearing their experiences of healthcare.

We want to thank everyone from the Lived Experience Charter for their energy, knowledge, and support through this process and are excited to continue the journey to improve and build upon the work we are doing.

HMYOI Cookham Wood

HMYOI Cookham Wood facilitates residence of young males aged 15 to 18 years who are remanded or sentenced by the courts to custody.

In collaboration with the Prison workforce Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust (CNWL) provide an integrated healthcare service that includes Primary Care, Health and Wellbeing and Substance Misuse Services. Our Staffing profile represents a diverse range of healthcare professionals, however, currently, there is no representation from People with Lived Experience (PwLE) within our team.

PwLE provide a crucial role within health provision to ensure that care provided is tailored to those using the service, first-hand experience within the workforce is therefore integral to understanding how best to support the young people we service by ensuring coproduction, participation, professional opportunities and a trauma informed workplace.

CNWL employ PwLE within other health service lines, so have established policies, positions and support structures for PwLE. However, in Health and Justice service lines we are presented with challenges to employment posed by security vetting requirements for PwLE of the criminal justice system.

Lived Experience Charter status will provide HMYOI Cookham Wood with insight and networks with key stakeholders to navigate and overcome the barriers facing recruitment of PwLE. As well as, setting values and standards to adhere to ensure that PwLE are well supported within Health and Justice work environments. This is an exciting opportunity to enrich the workforce and service at HMYOI Cookham Wood and we look forward to applying for Lived Experience Charter status.

HMP Huntercombe

HMP Huntercombe is a category C, foreign national, male prison.

Practice Plus Group are the prime provider for healthcare and have recently been re-awarded the contract. As part of the new contract the service will focus heavily on patient engagement and patient involvement in the delivery and reviewing of services. As such, HMP Huntercombe have recently introduced a new role to the site for a Patient Engagement Lead, which has recently gone out to advert. The team at Huntercombe are keen, if possible, to fill this role with a candidate with lived experience. If the successful candidate does not have lived experience then the team would be keen to work with those with lived experience. Practice Plus Group have a National Patient Engagement Strategy with a National Patient Engagement Lead in post with lived experience and as such the company are able to really understand the benefits that this brings to the services. Huntercombe also work closely with the Hepatitis C Trust – again with members that have lived experience. What the team have found is that engagement is much more positive when the men are able to talk to those who really have a true understanding of how it feels for them and as such are more willing to open up and help the healthcare team to improve the services that are offered.

For the reasons above HMP Huntercombe would be really keen to be part of the Lived Experience Charter and further this area of work to benefit the men at Huntercombe who are facing a really challenging set of circumstances both by being in prison and facing deportation.

Rethink Reconnect North East

At Rethink Mental Illness, we believe the individuals we support are at the heart of everything we do, from service design, to service delivery and to our transformation and long-term growth. Across the organisation we invest in the role of Lived Experience and within the Criminal Justice directorate this is central to our Reconnect provision.

Our Reconnect provision was one of the first in the UK, commencing in the pilot year and since its beginnings has had roles for volunteers, peer mentors and paid staff with lived experience. We have refined this pathway to include apprenticeship roles which can begin whilst in Category D estates or on license with Probation and gives options for full time work, or smaller voluntary options to suit each individual and their situation.

By joining the Lived Experience Charter, we hope to draw on the experience, knowledge and skills of other partners and ensure that we provide the best support and journey possible for those who join our organisation with a lived experience background. This in turn will ensure we provide the best possible service and provide the highest quality of support to those leaving the North East prisons.

Carolyn Houghton

Head of Criminal Justice and Secure Care

Rethink Mental Illness

Spectrum Community Health CIC

Spectrum Community Health CIC provides quality healthcare for people in vulnerable circumstances. We work in partnership to provide primary care, substance misuse and sexual health services, in the community and in secure environments including prisons, hospitals and immigration centres. As a not-for-profit social business, we are committed to addressing health inequalities and investing in the health and wellbeing of the communities we serve.

We understand how People with Lived Experience (PwLE) enrich our organisation, with a vital role in our new people strategy, our new patient engagement strategy, and our ambition to co-produce all our services.

The Lived Experience Charter is an excellent way to support social inclusion and our own journey. We are working together to build an ever more inclusive and supportive culture which embraces and nurtures lived experience of all kinds. Deepening our understanding has helped to identify areas for improvement in our business development.

Providing employment opportunities for PwLE of the criminal justice system is a fantastic step forward which has a strong resonance for Spectrum, as a leading provider of Health and Justice services.

Dr Linda Harris, Chief Executive of Spectrum, said: “Our patients and staff are the heartbeat of our organisation and we are committed to ensuring we co-produce our improvements in care and recruitment. We are listening intently to the needs of our population as we go about this charter mark, providing us with a brilliant framework to aspire for even higher standards and ultimately embrace the charter mark across all Spectrum sites.”

Together

Since Together was formed in 1879, we have believed that people with mental health issues have the right and the abilities to lead independent, fulfilling lives as part of their communities. We offer a wide variety of support to help people deal with the personal and practical impacts of mental health issues. The services we provide include one-to-one support in the community, supported housing and 24-hour accommodation services, advocacy and supporting people in criminal justice settings who’ve experienced mental distress.

Our core principle at together is service user leadership as we believe that benefits those people who are accessing support and has positive impact on all aspects of Together, and wider society. We want to be able to learn from people who have a range of views and who have experienced mental distress. By learning from the people who use our services or are part of our workforce, we aim to inform and influence Together from a Lived Experience perspective.

We are very excited to be applying for the Lived Experience Charter, as it represents all of the things we have been striving to achieve for our workforce, paid or volunteers. Our aim is that Together is a psychologically safe environment for everyone to bring their full and true selves at. We are committed to keep supporting staff with LE through and our policies reflect that, as well as our Inclusion groups. Achieving chartership would be an external recognition that we are an organisation with long-standing commitment and established ways to embrace Lived Experience.   

Wakefield Liaison and Diversion

The West Yorkshire Liaison & Diversion Service (WYL&D) is a cross-government initiative originally established in response to the Bradley Report. The service covers Wakefield, Leeds, Bradford, Kirklees and Calderdale. The Bradley Report identified 82 recommendations about the disproportionate representation of people with mental health, learning disability and wider social vulnerabilities who enter the criminal justice system. The aims and objectives of the All Age L&D service are:

To identify vulnerabilities for adults and young people who encounter the CJS

To improve access to healthcare and support services, to meet identified needs

To minimise crisis by early assessment and intervention

The Lived Experience Charter is crucial for our organisation to continue our progress in placing service users at the heart of what we do. We are constantly trying to learn and feel that this experience will encourage all staff to acknowledge that lived experience should be woven into the fabric of the whole service. We hope to encourage more people with lived experience to access roles across the organisation and are working on making WYL&D more accessible. Ultimately, we want to reach a point where we are leaders across the sector and act as an example for others to follow.

Vanguard South East London

SEL Vanguard, Forensic CAMHS and the Adolescent At Risk Forensic service (AAFS) form three specialist teams within National & Specialist CAMHS at SLaM NHS Trust.  

These teams work with young people, families, and professionals where there are complex needs and forensic risk.

To effectively provide these services, we believe it is essential to work collaboratively with young people, families and community partners to ensure that our services are accessible and flexible. In the development of the SEL Vanguard programme – we have tried to centre the voices of people and youth workers with lived experience to co-design and co-produce the service. The Clinical Team works in partnership with Vanguard case managers in community organisations, who have their own lived experience, in the programme delivery.

Across the three teams specific Lived Experience and Peer Mentor posts are being recruited to ensure that co-production and engagement is meaningful and is valued as an expert role. In applying for the charter, we hope to further embed lived experience into developing our services, to be evaluated on our current approach, and advised on areas for improvement. We hope to highlight good practice, inclusivity and gain wider support for valuing lived experience more broadly within SLaM.