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The hidden group facing a double lockdown

Posted By Clore Social Leadership, 08 October 2020
Updated: 07 December 2020
Paula Harriott is an integral member of the Double Lockdown Programme design group. Here she shines a light on the reality facing people experiencing the criminal justice system, and the lived experience leaders working tirelessly to support them.

As Autumn 2020 progresses, the social sector is forced to face the ongoing uncertainties and complexities of a second wave of the pandemic. As we move out of universal lockdown, we grapple with the possibilities of more, and the devastating impact this is having on vulnerable and marginalised communities. But there is one hidden group of society experiencing the effects of a double lockdown, which requires urgent and sustained attention and support.

Just like any community, prisoners and people leaving prisons, including children and young people, and their families, are anxious about Covid-19, but feel forgotten by the general public as they endure the harshest of lockdowns. A lockdown which has left many confined to a cell for up to 23 hours a day since March 2020, with little contact with other human beings.

"A lockdown which has left many confined to a cell for up to 23 hours a day since March 2020, with little contact with other human beings." Paula Harriot
Social leaders supporting prisoners and those leaving prisons are witnessing a major disruption to the criminal justice regime. Prisons have ceased crucial rehabilitation activities and interventions. There is major disruption to work activities, rehabilitative programmes and education, and a consequent disruption to preparation for parole and progression. Vital visits with loved ones have been stopped for months and are now re-starting, with social distancing, and no physical contact. With a second wave emerging this may all cease once again.

Likewise, people on probation are having to contend with online appointments and accessing services which are no longer face to face - conditions negatively impacting the delivery of the intense support required for the benefit of communities. The impending renationalisation of the probation service creates new challenges of potential disruption to an already strained service and many across the Criminal Justice sector have growing concerns over the dismantling of the Community Rehabilitation Companies.


"Lived experience leaders working across the Criminal Justice Sector have been challenged as never before." Paula Harriot
Lived experience leaders working across the Criminal Justice Sector have been challenged as never before as they navigate a complex and ever-evolving terrain. Many continue to work tirelessly on emergency responses, while others move towards thinking about recovery, renewal or building back better in a post-Covid world. We know that economic hardship and other social inequalities are on the way, while pre-existing inequities are on the rise, including racial injustice.

There is no doubt about the need for this programme, and the commitment of the LEx Leaders Movement at the Centre for Knowledge Equity and Clore Social teams to deliver. Coronavirus should not deter us from service at this crucial time and we must play our part to strengthen a sector that is having to do its utmost to serve some of the most marginalised people in our country.


"We must play our part to strengthen a sector that is having to do its utmost to serve some of the most marginalised people in our country." Paula Harriot
We therefore plan to respond quickly to design and deliver a programme which equips lived experience leaders with some of the skills, resilience and confidence that they need to rise to the challenges ahead. Essentially, the programme will build skills and leadership behaviours in the sector and ensure that lived experience leaders are better able to support and manage themselves, their people, organisations, and communities.

The leadership landscape of the Criminal Justice System is varied and diverse covering the voluntary, charity, public and private sectors – also spanning the intersection of multiple and complex injustices and disadvantage including homelessness; recovery and addiction; mental health; gender, racial injustice and/or economic injustice and poverty.

As part of that landscape there is a vibrant and growing community of Lived Experience Leaders (LEx leaders). People with direct, first-hand experience of the Criminal Justice System who are activating their lived experiences, in combination with their learned and practice experiences, to improve the lives of the communities they share experiences with. However, often LEx leaders have little, if any, support to develop their leadership skills in a strained and overstretched sector.


"This programme creates the space to meet all these ambitions." Paula Harriot
As a senior Lived experience leader in the criminal justice sector I see every day the undeniable contribution that those with lived experience make. I also witness the challenges we face as we seek to redefine the challenges and offer solutions; often reduced to labels that keep us within a ‘service user’ model, anonymous participants in research or depicted as too passionate or partisan.

Leadership, collaboration, and collective action are critical components of the change we seek. This programme creates the space to meet all these ambitions, building leadership, bringing people together and building the foundations of collective vision and action. I am delighted to be part of this initiative and salute the efforts of our allies at the Centre for Knowledge Equity and their partners Clore Social in supporting us to bring this about.

Tags:  challenges  conviction  criminal justice  diversity  programme  systems 

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Charities need to stop pretending they are transparent

Posted By Clore Social Leadership, 24 February 2018
Updated: 07 December 2020
Matt Stevenson-Dodd is the Chief Executive of Street League, UK’s leading sport for employment charity, and has been recently selected by The Guardian as one of the top charity CEO’s on social media. Matt is a guest speaker on the Clore6: Youth Sector Emerging Leaders Programme on 8 March.

The problem for charities with transparency is simple. Driven by a scarcity of funding, we feel compelled to tell ever more hard-hitting stories about the beneficiaries we serve rather than balancing this storytelling with hard facts about the actual impact we achieve (or don’t).

I believe we have reached the pinnacle of this story telling culture, epitomized by the collapse of Kids Company, who were seemingly built only on good stories with very few ‘facts’ to back them up.

This needs to change.

We need to balance good storytelling with hard facts, even if these hard facts don’t always tell a good story. If charities are truly focused on those in most need, then we have to accept that sometimes our work is really difficult and it doesn’t always get the results we want. We have a duty to tell this story, talking about what we do, as well as what we DON’T DO accurately and transparently.

Many charities think they are measuring their impact by reporting huge numbers of people they have ‘helped’. But what does ‘helped’ actually mean? Is it just saying hello to someone or does it mean truly making a change in that person’s life? This is where the culture of telling a good story has unfortunately taken over from transparent accurate impact reporting.

Let’s take a very measurable outcome, like getting someone a job. In many ways it is a binary ‘on or off’ outcome because that person will either get a job or they won’t, right? Well, yes to an extent, but unfortunately that is where many charities stop – they just tick the box and report that they have helped someone get outcome.

We don’t actually know anything about that person and whether they truly needed the help of the charity. What if the person who got the job was actually a university graduate with no socio-economic barriers the day before? Let’s say the charity helps them get a job, which is all good, but then they walk out of it the next day. In the current culture the box is still ticked, one job outcome recorded, regardless of whether they genuinely needed help and the longer-term impact.

Not good enough.

Outcomes are sometimes hard to measure, but not impossible. The softer the outcome (like improving someone’s self-esteem for example), the harder it is to measure. Even the easier to measure outcomes, like whether someone got a job, can also prove tricky – hence the need for more transparency and openness.

Let’s go back to our job outcome. To fully understand what is going on we need much more information to determine whether the charity is genuinely making a difference. We need to know whether the person we have helped needed it and what long-term change we actually made in their lives.

I am CEO of a charity called Street League – we are the UK’s leading Sport for Employment Charity. We have been fortunate enough to work with Impetus-PEF and Inspiring Scotland (the UK’s top Venture Philanthropy organisations) over the past seven years, who have pushed us hard to develop transparent impact measurement. We have been on a three-stage journey.

Pre-2010 we used to just measure ‘participation’ – the number of people who took part in our sessions. We stopped that and moved to an outcomes based model, very much like the one I outline above – ticking the box when we achieved a job or training outcome. That was better, but still a long way from the transparency we wanted.

Four years ago we introduced a new system which tracked the whole journey of the young person; from the moment we met them, right through to helping them stay in a job for six months or more. We examined where the young people were coming from, including the barriers they faced, and introduced a rigorous internal audit that required every outcome we achieved to be validated. Now, a job outcome is only valid once we have a photocopy of a first month’s pay slip or a job offer letter.

Last November we presented all of this information in our most transparent Annual Report to date which is available here. We have devoted the first section to talking about everything we didn’t get right, before we go on to talk about what we did get right. It has not been easy and we still have a way to go, but full data clarity has enabled us to throw a spotlight on our model, learn from our mistakes and change things so we can better serve our beneficiaries.

There have been many attempts to produce a unified measurement system for the charity sector. These virtuous attempts have usually ended in too higher a degree of complexity to make them workable. I believe there is a more straightforward and simple alternative.

All charities should agree to three high-level rules for reporting, which would kick start a revolution in transparency. At Street League we call these our ‘Three Golden Rules’:

  • Never over-claim what you do
  • All percentages must include absolute numbers
  • All outcomes must be backed by auditable evidence
  • If we all started with this, transparency will follow.

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Matt Stevenson-Dodd is a guest speaker on Clore6: Youth Sector Emerging Leaders Programme, where he will share his lessons on impact and the importance of transparency for good leadership.

If you are interested in hearing from inspiring speakers and experts in social sector leadership, check out our upcoming open Clore6 programme. The applications are open until 17 March 2017.

Tags:  change  charitysector  culture  event  funding  future  programme 

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