Support the design of a new peer learning programme to centre lived experience in decision-making
Are you working on co-production, participation, involvement, community engagement or any other approaches to centring lived experience?
Working hard, perhaps almost single-handedly, to shift power in your organisation towards more distributed, community-led, participatory, democratic, sociocratic or decolonial approaches to decision-making in the charity sector?
Would you be interested in being part of a learning circle of people doing this work in other spaces, to share challenges, learn together and build community power?
If the answer is yes, you are invited to a session to feed into the design of a new programme launching in autumn 2025.
The Centring Lived Experience Learning Circles will be a peer learning community for people shifting power, not ticking boxes. Each Learning Circle of up to 8 people will meet together over 6-9 months to work through challenges members are facing in their organisations to centre lived experience in decision-making. The circles will be facilitated, blending a mix of peer learning methods that build collective knowledge through exploratory questioning and reflective practice, leading members to take action and make decisions rooted in lived experience, collective wisdom and values, and an understanding of power dynamics.
To hear about the programme when it launches, click here: bit.ly/launch-notification
What is this workshop about?
The first circle is planned to start as a pilot in autumn 2025 and the journey to designing it started in January this year, building on several years delivering similar projects within organisations. Now, with a fuller idea and having received some initial feedback, the next step is to gather a small group of people who may be interested in this kind of programme, to hear what you would need it to be if you were to take part.
We will come together for an hour to connect with peers working to centre lived experience in decision-making, get a taster of what the programme will feel like, and share insights to help design and recruit a programme that you would want to be part of.
If you have lived experience of oppression and/or marginalisation, you are particularly welcome - this is for you. If you are working to centre lived experience and you have not experienced oppression and/or marginalisation, but you do have a committed anti-oppressive practice, you are also welcome.
Everyone who participates in this session will receive a £50 discount on the programme when it launches, and will be the first to know about it when it does.
Still not sure?
If you have any questions, want to set up a conversation, or would like to feed into the programme design in some other way (e.g. if you are interested but can't make this date), please don't hesitate to get in touch with Theo on ttccadbury@gmail.com.
To hear about the programme when it launches, click here: bit.ly/launch-notification
The programme will be facilitated by Theo Cadbury, an experienced peer learning facilitator and participation consultant who has worked with grassroots local, regional, national and international organisations on participatory decision-making processes and learning programmes to enable all of us to be involved in the decisions that affect our lives. She draws on learning from approaches and methods including Action Learning, Indigenous learning circles, Thinking Environment, Deep Democracy, sociocracy, as well as her own experiences growing up in youth-led faith and interfaith spaces, a mixed heritage family, and as a queer person.