Listening, learning, and leading through the lived experience of
local people with multiple needs.
Coordinating services with people experiencing homelessness, mental-ill health, addiction, and offending in combination.
News
Seeing the Full Picture Around Multiple Disadvantage: Learnings from the Fulfilling Lives Programme
About this event With a range of keynote speakers, interactive workshops, performances and networking, the final…
Dean Spruce
Effective transitions in Hospital Discharge: Stoke-on-Trent
Authors: Baz Tameez – Project Officer, VOICES Alicia Simmons – Project Officer – VOICES In late 2020…
Improving Legal Literacy: Homelessness Law and Legislation
Authors: Geoff Davies – Housing Law Specialist Advisor (CASNS) Sharon Sharman – Director (VOICES) As a housing…
Prison Discharge Pathway Project: what needs to change?
Author: Sharon Sharman, Learning and Evaluation Manager, VOICES In late 2020 we mobilised a series of…
VOICES Legacy Celebration
Author: Dean Spruce, Communication and Media Manager, VOICES The VOICES partnership in Stoke-on-Trent is one of…
From Fulfilling Lives to Changing Futures in Stoke-on-Trent
Photograph from StokeonTrentLive – Pictured: Jo Gideon (MP Stoke Central), John Mothersole (Chair of the…
A Learning Legacy to promote improved Legal Literacy in Stoke-on-Trent
Author: Sharon Sharman, Learning and Evaluation Manager, VOICES As the VOICES partnership is approaching the end…
VOICES legacy: ‘Housing First’
Author: Steve Willis, Project Officer, VOICES The legacy project working towards mainstreaming Housing First in Stoke-On-Trent…
‘DITTO’ – Telling our story once: Why does this matter?
Author: Alicia Simmons, Project officer, VOICES I’m going to offer you an example of an experience…
How partnership work and coproduction are creating new ways of working in a learning organisation
Authors: Anna Wilcox, Director of Services, Restart & Martin Schofield – Client Support Manager, Restart The…
Coproducing learning opportunities with Adult Social Care in Stoke-on-Trent
Author: Stephen Willis, Service Coordination Project Officer, VOICES Download the Care Act Toolkit here The legacy project…
Listening and Learning: Prison Discharge & Welfare Benefit Specialist Support
By Sharon Sharman, Learning and Evaluation Manager, VOICES The 2018 independent evaluation of integrating a welfare…
No Recourse to Public Funds – Help is at hand
Jude Hawes, Specialist Services & Equalities Team Manager Staffordshire North & Stoke on Trent Citizens Advice…
Commissioning 2.0: There’s a ghost in the machine analogy
Andy Meakin BA(Hons) MBA VOICES Project Director In the first article of this series (available via this…
Commissioning 2.0: Why our commissioning system must change
Andy Meakin BA(Hons) MBA, Project Director, VOICES I spent fifteen years of my public sector career…
Staffordshire Police: Anticipating, preventing and responding through workforce development
By Sharon Sharman, Learning and Evaluation manager, VOICES Commissioners, providers of services, teams and individual frontline…
A Shock to the System
By Sharon Sharman, Learning and Evaluation Manager, VOICES It was a cold Wednesday afternoon back in…
Join our team: Service Co-ordinator (full time post)
This is unique job opportunity to work as part of a vibrant and supportive team.…
Stoke-on-Trent Community of Practice: A Journey of Prison Release
By Sharon Sharman, Learning and Evaluation Manager, VOICES On 8th July 2020 @SoTCoP held the first…
‘Positive Partnership Practice in a Pandemic’
By John Ryan, WBLL Adviser – VOICES, SNSCAB Introduction Working in partnership with the local Drug and…
Listening and Learning in Lockdown: a learning and evaluation update from VOICES
By Sharon Sharman, Learning and Evaluation Manager, VOICES Since 2015 the VOICES citywide learning programme has…
Multiple Exclusion Homelessness – A Safeguarding Toolkit for Practitioners
Working in collaboration with Keele University, Kings College London and CASCAIDr the VOICES team have…
Coronavirus and its impact on benefits for people experiencing multiple disadvantages
By Julie Holdcroft, Welfare Benefits Caseworker, Citizens Advice Staffordshire North & Stoke on Trent The DWP…
Coronavirus (COVID-19) and changes to the Care Act 2014 – A briefing for homelessness providers and practitioners
By Bruno Ornelas, Fiona Bateman and Michelle Cornes Introduction This briefing highlights the changes to Care Act…
Universal Credit, Specified Accommodation: Payments from Universal Credit and/or Third Party Deductions for ineligible service charge arrears
By Citizens Advice Staffordshire North & Stoke on Trent The Issue Ineligible service charges are those not…
In Plain Sight: Review and Photo Gallery
Back in February VOICES commissioned local arts-based companies, B Arts and Rideout, to coproduce a…
COVID-19: Ending the Interim Accommodation Duty and Mental Capacity
Co-written by Bruno Ornelas (Head of Service and Safeguarding, VOICES) Fiona Bateman (Chair, CASCAIDr) Does a Local Authority…
Homeless Health Service: Timetable
By Dean Spruce, Communication & Media Manager, VOICES Brighter Futures’, North Staffordshire GP Federation and Stoke-on-Trent…
‘A Cuckoo in the Nest’: An introduction to Cuckooing
By Geoff Davies, Specialist Housing Advisor, Stoke North and Staffordshire Citizens Advice Bureau Introduction More and more…
Working with Complexity: Social Care and Housing
By Tom Pollard, Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust As a newly qualified Social Worker supporting…
Unwise choices or uninformed decisions regarding housing options? The duty to make enquires and the implied duty to support decision making before reaching conclusions
By Bruno Ornelas, Head of Service, VOICES Belinda Schweh, Chief Executive, CASCAIDr and Geoff Davies, Specialist Housing…
In Plain Sight – The lives and hopes of invisible people
An interactive journey with storytelling buskers, following the lives of Tash and Steve; two individuals…
#seethefullpicture – Improving Access to Mental Health Services for People Facing Addiction
20th January to 16th February 2020 A campaign launched by the Fulfilling Lives Programme. Introducing the second…
Communities of Practice: Update
By Steve Freeman, Solution Focused Practitioner The current round of @SoTCoPs began in September with a…
EU Citizens and the right to UK benefits: Part 1: The EU Settlement Scheme
By Karen Dunn, Specialist Welfare Benefits Team, Citizens Advice Staffordshire North and Stoke on Trent This…
A Persistent and Unequivocal Refusal? The Ending of Interim Accommodation
The duty to provide interim accommodation The provision of interim accommodation has always been an area…
Opening the too Difficult Box: Strengthening Adult Safeguarding Responses to Homelessness and Self-neglect
By Bruno Ornelas, Head of Service, VOICES Over the next three years (2019-2022) we will take…
Stoke-on-Trent Communities of Practice: New Season
By Lee Dale, Community Development Coordinator, VOICES After a momentary pause and much reflection, we are…Video
VOICES Legacy Video 2022
A short film to celebrate the journey and achievements of the VOICES project in Stoke-on-Trent. The…Improving service transitions for people experiencing multiple disadvantage: Prison release webinar
Click video above to play The experience of prison for people facing multiple disadvantage is often…Stoke-on-Trent Community of Practice August 2020 : Prison Release
Following the last Community of Practice discussion around prison release on the 9th of September,…Sharing Learning with the Fulfilling Lives Projects
System Broker Diane Allman talks to us about the teams recent visit to the Blackpool…Get Talking Hardship: July 2019
Get Talking Hardship was a community research project commissioned by the Hardship Commission in Stoke-on-Trent…LATEST BLOGS
Dean Spruce
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