What have we been asked to do
In 2020 Dudley Council’s Public Health team were at the early stages of understanding and mitigating against poverty across the borough. In partnership with People’s Voice Media, we were tasked with gathering insights from local people to gain a better understanding of their experience of living in poverty. In delivering this work we focused on individuals who had accessed support from Black Country Foodbanks, Brierley Hill Foodbank, Dudley Citizens Advice Bureau and other poverty support initiatives.
What we did
We ran orientation sessions with people living and working in Dudley to plan the work and co-create the activities. We also ran pop-up storytelling sessions with staff from a local Citizens Advice Bureau and captured their experiences of supporting people living in poverty. People’s Voice Media delivered Community Reporter training – recruiting and training 12 volunteer Community Reporters who helped to gather stories from local people.
By the end of the project, we had gathered a range of stories from different people. These covered areas such as the ways that people try to manage their money, experiences of formal and informal support, the challenges that poverty brings to people lives and how it impacts on them and the people around them. We then curated these stories, working with people to analyse and identify the insights from them and package them in a range of ways including edited films, summarising the findings in an interactive reports and visualisations.
We then mobilised these stories using a range of strategies to work with groups and organisations to connect the curated stories to decision and change makers to use the knowledge from them to create positive change.
Our impact
The stories provided a unique insight to help to inform services and strategies in Dudley Council’s ambition to address poverty in the Dudley area. Additionally, it supported Black Country Foodbank to develop funding applications, so they could reach more people in need. The stories were also used as part of a public exhibition that aimed to break down stigma surrounding poverty and raise awareness about the issues at a local level.
