In April 2024, I took on the role of Local Organiser with a particular focus within the Foodbanks. It was a new challenge for both me and inHope to step into the world of campaigning. With the General Election being called shortly after starting this role, it was straight in at the deep end, partnering with other local foodbanks to run hustings, help people to register to vote for the first time and then meeting with all the new MPs. By October 2024, our first client campaign group, Fishponds Community Voices, was formed with regular meetings to think about what issues were impacting the people using the foodbank locally. By March 2025, we had decided to campaign for better living conditions in rented accommodation and started reaching out to other community groups to recruit more members. We took a brief pause in June 2025 to focus on joining with 700 others across the country to attend Trussell’s Lobby Day at Westminster, where we met with 5 West Country MPs.

Lobby Day revealed a passion for stopping the proposed reforms to PIP that the Government were proposing, so after a few discussions we pivoted to focus instead on campaigning around PIP reform. To do this we expanded the group to become Bristol Community Voices and began reaching out to other organisations and individuals around Bristol who were interested in joining with us. We knew there was real power in listening to people’s stories of their experiences, so we decided to collect as many stories as possible and to create a display that we could share with local and national decision makers. Through various group meetings and individual meetings, we began the long process of collecting stories and planning our display. One of the group members who had been with us since the beginning, mentioned that to her the PIP process felt like a constant ticking clock of anxiety always waiting for what came next. This idea became the central point of the display, with each number having a different stage of the PIP process and the stories were slotted in around this. However, stories weren’t only collected for the display. It was important to the group that these were also submitted to the Timms Review call for evidence, to highlight the realities of the PIP process that so many people are facing. Over 25 stories were submitted to the Timms review, and I was also invited to attend a stakeholder meeting with the DWP to discuss the barriers that those using inHope services were facing in attending PIP assessments.

In June we took the display with all the stories to Recovery Festival to highlight the issue, allowing people to share their own stories and gather signatures for our open letters to local MPs Karin Smyth and Damien Egan. Both Karin and Damien hold positions within the government* that have a certain level of influence over DWP and health decisions. Alongside the letters we also included a copy of all the stories printed into a book. This book, titled “PIP: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly”, contains 52 pages full of stories, quotes, poems and a section where we invited individuals to write their top suggestion to improve PIP. The book was also sent to various other Bristol and South Gloucestershire MPs and members of the House of Lords, to try and share as widely as possible the reality of so many people from Bristol. There is also a digital version of the book that is available to read here: PIP The Good The Bad The Ugly

This role has opened lots of opportunities for inHope to share the realities faced by our clients at both a local and a national level. We’ve helped to change policy (removing the 2-child limit), bring in reviews to proposed policies (PIP reform) and built networks with other like-minded organisations. We’ve visited Westminster during a heatwave, during snow and ice and been invited for tea with the Chancellor at Downing Street. It’s been a busy two years and now is the time to really focus on embedding participation throughout inHope’s services, to start co-designing what we do, and providing the best possible services to those who need us most.

Lauren Pritchard – Participation Lead (Former Local Organiser)