In this guest blog by the Fulfilling Lives Lambeth, Southwark, and Lewisham team, they share their experiences of working with people experiencing multiple disadvantage. Fulfilling Lives Lambeth, Southwark, and Lewisham is part of a national programme testing new ways of supporting people experiencing multiple disadvantage, so that individuals are better able to manage their own lives. It is funded by The National Lottery Community Fund.

In response to the synthesis report published by our research and learning partnership with NPC, Groundswell and the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research at Sheffield Hallam University (CRESR), Fulfilling Lives Lambeth, Southwark, and Lewisham (LSL) spoke to a range of team members, and they offered their insight into our new report.

The research explored the current system of support for people experiencing multiple disadvantage in Lambeth, Southwark, and Lewisham and showed that if we give people the space to say what they need, they will tell you.

The team were not only able to support the findings but they also answered our questions below and provided us with evidence from their own experience when working in the system.

  1. Would it be better if services worked more closely together? One of the Fulfilling Lives LSL system change priorities is improving access to services for people experiencing multiple disadvantage. One way of achieving this is through navigators, or as they are called in our programme, Link Workers—who link people into multiple services.
  2. How can taking an informed-approach meet people’s specific needs? The team responded stating that it is important to understand the experience of trauma and pain in a person’s life and how this can contribute to the feeling of mistrust, having been let down by the system in the past. Trauma can also relate to the behaviour of a person but through building trust and offering continuous support we can avoid exclusion and better understand the person’s needs.
  3. Would using more of a person-led approach provide better outcomes? A person-led approach is listening to what the person wants from their support and letting them take the lead, this creates autonomy and pride in their journey.
  4. Can we move away from short-term funding? The team pointed out that moving away from short-term investment could have a positive effect on staff. It means that they can offer long term and high-quality services for the people they support.

Read the full article about working with people in the system at NPC.