How can we build trust to create tangible change?

Building trust through listening, learning and lived experience

As we approach National Inclusion Week, I’ve been reflecting on what inclusion means to us at The Advocacy Project and, perhaps more importantly, what it needs to mean in practice.

This year’s theme from Inclusive Employers is Build Trust. Navigate Change. It feels particularly relevant to us.

Trust is fundamental to advocacy. People need to know that they will be listened to, that their experiences will be taken seriously and that they can speak openly about what matters to them. Without trust, it is much harder to have a meaningful voice or to influence change.

The same is true inside an organisation.

Inclusion starts with listening

For more than 25 years, The Advocacy Project has worked alongside people who are too often excluded from decisions about their own lives. We have learned that listening is not simply about hearing what someone says. It is about being curious, taking people’s experiences seriously and being prepared to act differently as a result.

That lesson applies to our own workplace too.

We want our staff to feel able to tell us about their experiences – including experiences of inequality, exclusion or barriers – and to know that doing so can make a difference.

That isn’t always easy. Creating genuinely safe spaces means being willing to hear things that may challenge us. It means accepting that our intentions are not always the same as the impact of our actions. And it means resisting the temptation to become defensive when we are told that something needs to change.

For me, that is an important part of building trust.

Learning from lived experience

Lived experience has always been central to our approach. We know that people who use services are experts in their own lives, and that their experiences can tell us things that no policy, process or professional perspective can tell us on its own.

We want to apply that same principle to our staff.

Our people bring a huge range of experiences, identities, perspectives and expertise to The Advocacy Project. When we create the conditions for people to share those experiences safely, we have an opportunity to learn – and to make our organisation better.

This year, we are focusing on listening, learning and lived experience as part of our EDI journey.

These aren’t three separate activities. They are connected.

• We listen to understand.
• We learn from what we hear.
• And we use lived experience to help us make meaningful change.

Navigating change together

We are not claiming to have all the answers. Inclusion is not a destination that an organisation can arrive at and then tick off.

There will be things we get right, things we need to improve and things we haven’t yet thought about. The important thing is what we do with that learning.

As we navigate change, we want to create a culture where people can ask questions, challenge assumptions and have difficult conversations respectfully. We want our staff to know where they can go to share an experience or concern, and we want leaders to be accountable for listening and responding.

We have already made positive changes following staff feedback, including the introduction of a transparent pay policy, reduced paperwork for appraisals, wider training opportunities and a new website.