Creating a listening space

The HVM team recently facilitated the National Lottery Community Fund’s Help through Crisis programme’s third National event. This is a day-long conference for the 69 Help through Crisis projects funded through the National Lottery. The projects combine partnerships of small voluntary organisations and established national charities to provide advice, advocacy and support to help people who are experiencing, or are at risk of, hardship crisis. Such crisis might have occurred due to poverty, homelessness, addiction or the myriad reasons for life becoming too challenging to resolve without support. The programme develops mechanisms to overcome the difficulties being faced and to support people to generate their own plans for their futures.

The National Event is organised by HVM on behalf of the Learning, Sharing and Evaluation Consortium led by Ipsos MORI working with HVM and Revolving Doors. This annual gathering is co-designed with the projects to ensure what we talk about meets their needs. The day provides an opportunity for projects to share best practice and to network with other organisations. 

This year, the sense of the event providing a much-needed listening space really shone through. Participants fed back that they appreciated being able to meet others who were facing similar challenges to them. We were honoured to facilitate a space where such amazing and hard working individuals could meet, share stories and feel heard. We look forward to continuing our work on this five year programme with regional and subject specific events planned for 2020, the penultimate year of the programme.