
Our Journey
Reflections, ideas, and thoughts

Lived Experience and the Importance of the Heart
Our culture requires us to sever and imprison our heart, cutting us off from vital sources of experience and learning…

What I don't know about inclusion
The more I have experienced exclusion as a disabled person the more I see the limits of my understanding of how to include others…

The Gateshead Bridgebuilder Diaries: 2. Recruiting Bridgebuilders
If you’re trying to explore new and creative ways to discover what could make life better for people who experience poverty and disadvantage…

Rail Travel and Person-Centred System Design
I’ve been involved in the Campaign for Family Friendly Trains since autumn 2021. Our ask is simple; that trains are designed to...

VCSE orgs - let’s start Going Green Together!
VCSE organisations have a unique opportunity to tackle the climate crisis and contribute to systemic change.

Deprogramming Dexter
Or 'from weirdo to professional and back again' In school I was seen as ‘Stu the weirdo’. Long hair, earrings, flamboyant clothes...

Tackling Male Entitlement, One Conversation At A Time
It was half 10 on a Wednesday night when I picked up my phone, crying, to message my friends. The news had just broken about...

The Trouble With Having Values
Hands up, who works for, or has worked for, an organisation that has organisational values? Like mission statements and vision...

A word on decentralisation
There’s been a lot of talk from a lot of people (myself included) about how the disruption caused by COVID-19 present us with a window of opportunity…

The malfunctions of funding (Gateshead inquiry)
The Gateshead Inquiry is seeking to understand how learning happens within organisations working amongst severe and multiple disadvantage. Last year, we interviewed 51 people across 33 organisations. One theme that kept surfacing was funding and the problems it causes.

Is learning a luxury?
In Gateshead, we’re trying to understand how learning happens within organisations working in the field of severe and multiple disadvantage. We’ve interviewed 51 people across 33 different organisations. Our most worrying finding about how learning happens is that often it doesn’t.