A warm welcome for DLUHC’s new Head of Changing Futures Programme, Jenny Ewels

As part of my induction into the role of Head of Changing Futures for DLUHC, Gemma invited me to visit Stoke to hear first-hand about the work and meet some key stakeholders across the partnership. I was accompanied on the visit by Hazel Nicholson, DLUHC’s Senior Delivery Lead. 

The visit started with the staff team meeting where we were given a warm welcome and learned about current activity from front-line workers, project managers, expert citizens, peer support workers and partners from other key services. The passion for the programme was palpable and it was great to hear about the work to map the prison release process and highlight the challenges faced by individuals trying to engage services over the course of one day. We look forward to seeing the outputs from this and hear how it is being used to reignite commitment to change across Stoke. We will also be delighted to feed this into the cross-Government Board on Reducing Reoffending. It was also interesting to learn about how useful the ‘Complex Needs Alert’ has been in sharing the support needs of beneficiaries with DWP colleagues.  

After a delicious lunch in the Dudson Café, we met with partners from Expert Citizens to hear about how they built on successes from their key role in Fulfilling Lives and how they are helping to build a system across Stoke which is co-designed by those with first hand experiences of the barriers and challenges people with multiple disadvantage face. It was great to hear how some of those championing lived experience (LE) have been recognised at the National Insights Awards last November.   

We finished the day by meeting Peter Tomlin Director of Adult Social Care, Health Integration and Wellbeing, Assistant Director Lee Calvert, and Councillor Walker, Cabinet Lead for Adult Social Care. Peter echoed LE is key to long lasting system change and how powerful the learning delivered through the Insight Academy across services has been. He acknowledged the challenges to securing future funding locally, specifically for key elements such as personal budgets which are key to making quick, simple solutions but Peter was quick to emphasise how there has been a real shift to genuine partnership working across the city. 

Throughout the day we were given a really strong sense of the passion, expertise and excellent partnership working that has been built up over the years in Stoke, on every level. We will be bringing your ideas and examples to other people in the national Changing Futures ‘family’ as we travel around the country visiting the other 14 areas. Please remember there is a Changing Futures newsletter and an online platform – the Mighty Network – where you can share learning and build networks with each other.

Hazel and I want to send a huge thank you to everyone at Changing Futures Stoke for giving up so much of their time to tell us about their work, we had a truly inspiring day.  

Regards

Jenny Ewels

Head of Changing Futures Programme

Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities

www.gov.uk/dluhc | @luhc