Lived Experience Groups
Achieve Foundation is a non-profit organisation led by people with lived experience. We are dedicated to helping individuals and communities through our projects, involvement, engagement, education, and training work.
We believe that bringing people with lived experience in to advise and give feedback on the design, delivery, and development of a service will ensure that the service works for those it is intended to help.
Ensuring ‘Lived Experience’ is at the heart of service design and delivery
The people and families who have lived experience of services are a vital source of intelligence about how to improve these services. Listening to and involving people with direct experience of services is widely recognised as an effective way to improve both policy and practice.
Involving these experts by experience is key to the difference we can make in the lives of people, both improving the quality and impact of the services on offer and enabling individuals to build a new identity which supports their journey.
As well as contributing to the design and delivery of services, it is important that people with lived experience are able to be involved in strategic decision making. Therefore, it’s important that organisations take proactive steps to recruit higher numbers of people with experience of the services they provide, including at senior levels and as trustees.
The importance of lived experience Experts and Researchers
Though rarely discussed, it is vital to to develop open, honest and equal working relationships between Lived Experience Experts and Researchers. It is also essential to put the ‘do no harm’ principle into practice and to have support in place to minimise this.
Being involved in research studies can be a great source of personal growth as it offers an opportunity to use and reframe their, often traumatic, lived experience in a positive way.
Read about how our Neurodivergent Lived Experience Group is helping to shape how digital content is made Usable for Neurodiverse People with Cognitive and Learning Disabilities by encouraging the use of the Cognitive Accessibility Guidance (COGA) in conjunction with WCAG.
Join our Community of Lived Experience Members
We place our panels at the heart of our organisation, to ensure that all of the expertise we provide to our clients is authentic, up to date, and appropriate for each client’s specific projects.
So we would love to hear from you if you are interested in being involved in consumer research (on occasion paid), and have experiences and perspectives that may be different to what organisations currently receive.
Who can become a member?
We’re looking for members who have experience of:
- Recent repeated contact with the criminal justice system, including police, courts, prisons or probation
- Children and young people’s services, including looked-after and child protection services
- Being dyslexic, dyspraxic or have dyscalculia (difficulty with words, spatial concepts or numbers)
- Being in the Armed Forces
- Sexual assault services
- Being neurodivergent or neurovariant (including dyslexia, ADHD, and autism)
- Experiencing problems such as mental ill health, substance abuse, domestic violence/abuse or homelessness
Why get involved?
- Members enjoy meeting and collaborating with others, and this creates a strong sense of community.
- It’s an opportunity to use your knowledge and experience of the criminal justice system to directly influence decisions that are made about the system.
- It also provides the chance to learn new skills, build your confidence, and move onto new opportunities.
- Have your opinion heard during research
- Receive payment for certain research projects
