“It felt like a levelling out”: How people in poverty are changing the system in Trafford

The cost-of-living crisis is pushing people further into poverty. Parents are struggling to feed their children in increasing numbers. Early 2023 was the worst period on record for homelessness in England. Against this stark backdrop, councils are adopting innovative approaches to address the causes and consequences of poverty locally.

One of the most striking examples of this is the Trafford Poverty Truth Commission. Built on the power of relationships, the project brought together Community Commissioners – local residents with lived experience of poverty – with Civic Commissioners – local leaders and key decision makers in the public, private and third sectors – to identify solutions to poverty in Trafford.

We sat down with Claire who coordinated the commission and Natalie who got involved in the project after becoming homeless – an experience that left her determined to change the system.

In this conversation:

• Claire Vibert, Coordinator, Trafford Poverty Truth Commission
• Natalie, Community Commissioner
• Summer Simpson, Communications Manager, New Local

Summer: Natalie, can you tell us why you decided to get involved in the commission?

Natalie: I’ve always enjoyed community projects and that’s why I trained to be an occupational therapist (OT) – I believe in the power of people. When I was working as an OT, I unfortunately became unwell mentally and physically and had to give up my job. I then lost my home and my partnership. It was quite traumatic, but what made it even more traumatic was the way that I was treated and my experience with the system. That really had a negative impact on my mental health and my wellbeing.

My experience of poverty has been really difficult. I have lived on the breadline all my life, I haven’t got a support network or any family around me, so without that, when things went pear shaped, I didn’t have any backup. I had to declare myself homeless during lockdown and try and find somewhere to live in my locality, which I wasn’t able to do. I was offered a bedsit quite far away from where I live. I haven’t got a car and my son would have had to move schools – it was just unreal to me how difficult it was. I eventually managed to find a place nearby just by luck, it’s double the rent that I get for housing benefit, but at least I’ve got a house for now.

From my perspective, this could happen to any of us, and we should have that in mind when we’re providing any services.

Natalie

After my own experiences, I decided I wanted to try and implement some change to make sure that other people don’t have to go through what I went through. From my perspective, this could happen to any of us, and we should have that in mind when we’re providing any services.

Summer: What did your role involve?

Natalie: The commission was formed of four task forces looking at different themes, and I was involved in one on access to services. When you’re experiencing poverty or difficulty, you’re not always aware of what services are out there, where to go or who to speak to. The aim of the taskforce was to make services more visible and accessible to people in the community. We looked at access needs for people who have literacy problems, for example, or people with English as a second language, people without access to the internet or those with illnesses. At the same time, we were aware that the issue isn’t just about people accessing services, but around services themselves getting the support they need. So we tried to come up with solutions from the perspective of the service and the people accessing it. We landed on the idea of a one stop shop where someone could go and find information about multiple services without having to repeat their story over and over again.

It was great to be able to sit next to the deputy leader of the council and have a conversation with her. I just couldn’t believe that would ever occur and she’d treat me as a regular person.

Natalie

Summer: Has this experience strengthened your belief in the power of communities?

Natalie: Definitely – there were Community Commissioners and Civic Commissioners involved in the project and we were treated equally throughout. There wasn’t any one voice that was prioritised over others. It was great to be able to sit next to the deputy leader of the council and have a conversation with her. I just couldn’t believe that would ever occur and she’d treat me as a regular person. There was a belief that everyone had come together and, as much as we could, we were trying to advocate for change. These are big issues and they’re hard nuts to crack but slowly we’re trying to do that. We need to start locally to be able to identify the change that needs to occur. Within OT we focus on graded exercise – taking little steps at a time. I think that’s what happened with the Poverty Truth Commission – let’s see how much we can do within this little meeting, and then that can spiral out.

Summer: How did you go about creating that environment of equality and trust – was it something you planned for in advance?

Claire: We were really conscious that the commission would only work if we managed to engender that atmosphere. We planned the initial meetings around relationship building over and above anything else. The very first thing we did was a quick icebreaker where everybody had to put themselves in order of their birthdays. It was a really simple and slightly cheesy way of showing that we’ve all got something in common. That was the kind of tone that we wanted to set, and we also made quite a big effort to come together and get to know each other by having some parts of the meeting less work focused, for example by sharing food.

We wanted to…make sure that everyone was coming to the project as a human being first and foremost, over and above being a Community Commissioner or Civic Commissioner or director of this or head teacher of that

Claire

From early on people spent time together one on one or in small groups so that they could become comfortable with each other and feel able to share their own circumstances. We also asked our Civic Commissioners to come with that frame of mind, to share some of their own background and struggles that they’ve overcome personally. They might perhaps have influential jobs now, but that doesn’t mean to say that they haven’t experienced things in their own lives. We wanted to highlight that and make sure that everyone was coming to the project as a human being first and foremost, over and above being a Community Commissioner or Civic Commissioner or director of this or head teacher of that – it was more about coming together as humans.

We tried to balance out getting to know each other and building relationships with exploring in more detail how poverty really affects people’s lives and opportunities. In one session we came up with a hypothetical scenario: imagine that you come home one day and you receive a bill, you’ve gotten into arrears. Think about how you’d respond to that in your own life. We put our commissioners together in pairs to talk through how that would impact them, and I think that helped bring things home to the Civic Commissioners. Something that in their lives might be an irritation or a bit of a hurdle to get over in a week or so, but something they would be able to move on from, could cause a spiral for people living in poverty.

We didn’t know who was going to join and we had our own expectations about how they would treat us. But it felt very much like a levelling out – it was just a human experience.

Natalie

Natalie: Initially it was quite intimidating for us Community Commissioners – we didn’t know who was going to join and we had our own expectations about how they would treat us. But it felt very much like a levelling out – it was just a human experience. Some of the Civic Commissioners shared their own experiences, and that was really nice to hear, you know, ‘I may be a CEO of this charity, but actually, this and this happened’ or ‘I grew up in an estate myself and that’s why I’m interested in this.’ Everybody being able to do that in a safe space really helped, and we all knew we were there with a common goal – to try and make a difference within the community, and you could really sense that. Going forward, for a lot of us Community Commissioners, I think that’s shaped how we’re going to approach things that happen in life. When we’re talking to people within services or people that supposedly are further up the hierarchy than us, we can see that they are just human beings there to help. So in that sense, it was a bit of a learning curve.

Claire: We took time to understand each of the Community Commissioner’s individual circumstances and to plan around their needs, whether that was English not being their first language or issues around literacy. It’s easy to make assumptions that everyone can jump in and access a task in the same way, but that’s not the case. We had to think about how we either adapted our plans or made sure there was support in place so the process remained equitable.

Summer: What was the role of the council – how were they involved in power sharing and decision making?

Claire: The council, together with a local housing trust, funded the Poverty Truth Commission, and it was driven from the council side in terms of scoping it out and setting it up. This felt like a real strength and support throughout because we knew that the council wanted it to happen and wanted it to be success rather than us trying to get their attention. It very much felt that they were listening and on board throughout. But I would say that being separate from the council was a strength too. We weren’t viewed as a council run project and this helped our Community Commissioners see us as an independent voice.

As we were delivering a funded project, the facilitation team had to regularly keep in touch with the council to keep them up to date on progress and to maintain buy in. Early on when we were recruiting our civic commissioners, the council was very helpful in terms of opening doors and getting us in touch with the right people. The same applies with recruiting our Community Commissioners, we were introduced to people out in the community across Trafford who could help us spread the word.

We had political and officer representation on the commission from the start: Sarah, who is the Deputy Chief Executive and Liz who is an elected councillor with a portfolio on the executive committee. This was really valuable, particularly as the commission progressed and we moved towards the report stage. We needed buy in from the council to start to implement our recommendations. Sarah and Liz had seen how it worked, and really believed in the approach that we’d taken and the recommendations that we’d come up with. This helped move us forward – I’m not sure how easy it would have been without their participation in the project.

It was like having a direct line to people who could actually make a change.

Natalie

Natalie: It felt like having them there made the commission more important and influential. It was like having a direct line to people who could actually make a change. You have preconceived ideas about typical politicians but Liz and Sarah were really welcoming, they really listened and I felt that they wanted to make a difference.

Summer: Can you tell us a bit more about the four recommendations put forward by the commission?

Claire: The four recommendations are to:

• Improve how Trafford residents access services
• Continue to use to voice of people with lived experience in the development of policy and services in Trafford
• Make public transport truly accessible for everyone
• Tackle mental health and isolation

The council voted unanimously in favour of putting these recommendations into practice. This feels like real validation of the work that our commissioners have done. It also means that it’s got to happen now, and we’ll work with the council to put the recommendations into practice. The council is in the process of rewriting its anti-poverty strategy on the basis of the commission, and I think that speaks to the kind of impact the commission has had in the council and its commitment to take our advice on board.

Summer: What happens next?

Claire: Initially the facilitation team have been funded to continue in our posts for an extra six months to start to do some of that work around embedding the voice of lived experience. We’re looking at how we can do that through the existing commissioners, and potentially by expanding that group and setting up a community panel that we can promote within the council and to its partners. The aim being to ensure that services and policies are co-designed properly, rather than just consulted on later in the process.

We’re also looking to develop a training offer for Trafford so that those who are either on the frontline or in policy roles have the opportunity to learn about how poverty impacts people’s ability to interact with them, and the effect it has on their mental health and on other aspects of their lives. Hopefully, services and policies can then be designed and delivered better with that deeper understanding.

We also have dates in the diary for some reunions for the whole Poverty Truth Commission, bringing our Civic Commissioners back into the room with our Community Commissioners, getting updates from the council on progress against the recommendations, getting all the commissioners to tell us what they’ve done against the pledges that they’ve made. We’ve tried to build in that friendly accountability into these next few months, and to make sure that we’re having an impact because that was what we wanted all along.

Natalie: Community Commissioners put in a lot of time and effort and now we want to make sure that they’re making good of what they said. Meeting regularly and getting that feedback gives you a bit of motivation – finding out that you actually are making difference. It’s difficult in the place we’re in with funding cuts. Things we’d like to do, potentially can’t happen and there’s an element of that in the back of your head, but I think that we’ve got to try and do as much as we can despite that – there’s no point giving up.

When you make decisions about people, not with them, you make assumptions that aren’t necessarily true. Rather than people involved in policymaking going ‘I think they need that’, they should be asking ‘what do you need?’.

Natalie

Summer: What has this experience in Trafford shown you about the importance of policies and services being designed or influenced by people with lived experience?

Natalie: When you make decisions about people, not with them, you make assumptions that aren’t necessarily true. Rather than people involved in policymaking going ‘I think they need that’, they should be asking ‘what do you need?’. There are people in positions of power now who experienced difficulties years ago but it’s very different to living it now. In my ten years as an OT, I worked with so many people, and I really tried to advocate for them and be empathetic to them, and I hope I achieved that. But it wasn’t until I was the one going through awful circumstances, having lost everything, that I realised how important it is to speak to someone who has been there.

We need to address the fundamental challenges in our public services, but at the same time we can make small changes based on the experiences of people who have been in the system that make a big difference. For instance, changing how you speak to someone on the phone can improve someone’s day, their outlook or their wellbeing.

Summer: How has your involvement in the commission impacted you?

Natalie: As a group, I think our confidence in our ability has grown. One of our commissioners who’s interested in cooking has set up a budget cooking class, for example. It’s still not easy, but I think our competency has grown because of the commission and our belief that we can make some sort of change. We have had ongoing opportunities to work with different agencies – I worked with Trafford Leisure to identify barriers to health and leisure and I’m working within the national poverty truth network on mental health. I got involved with Northern Powerhouse and that really inspired me – knowing that there are groups out there trying to change the country, I love that. These experiences have opened my eyes and made me more hopeful about the future – we’re not all isolated and alone, we can find people to work with who have similar ideals and values.

The commission has given me more courage and confidence in what I have the ability to say and do.

Natalie

Being involved in this project has made me realise that I am capable. I haven’t been able to go back to work as an OT and before I started the commission, I felt very far removed from that ability. The commission has given me more courage and confidence in what I have the ability to say and do. I’d like to eventually go back to work as an occupational therapist in some capacity and use the skills that I’ve gained from doing the Poverty Truth Commission. In the meantime, my son is only nine and I’m trying to bring him up the best I can to be the best person that he can be, and be the best mum that I can be.

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