At the core of our refugee involvement strategy lies a commitment that is deeply personal to me: the clarity of purpose when we involve refugees. As a refugee I always thought that my experience matters, and insights coming from lived experience should contribute to a clear purpose to create positive change. I’ve seen examples of where refugees are invited to workshops, events and consultations without clear aims, with no feedback or meaningful follow-up on the suggestions and insights that we as people with lived experience have so generously shared.

There are many ways to avoid tokenism and involve experts by experience: a common one is establishing an advisory group of experts by experience. If done well, the creation of this advisory group could lead to purposeful involvement, allowing active listening, trusted relationships and a sense of belonging for people with lived experience. We are, however, steering away from this advisory group model approach. Instead, our focus is shifting towards pioneering projects that bring together refugees and staff for specific, time-bound, strategic aims. I believe this approach helps us to do meaningful and purposeful involvement in a more systematic, streamlined and timely way.

A lack of resources and time lead to some engagement with experts by experience that cannot go up the ladder of participation towards reciprocal partnership and co-production.

As with all different co-production approaches, there are a myriad of pitfalls associated with the advisory group model. It is not easy to establish an advisory group that really challenges ideas and brings alternative insights to voluntary organisations. It often takes months if not years for experts by experience to develop confidence, create a sense of belonging to the advisory group, and for the group to be functional and embedded to organisation’s decision-making structures. Strategic recruitment, induction, and training of experts by experience is a very resource- and time-intensive process.

Experts by experience often see value of joining an advisory group, but they may have different motivations, which may span from improving English, to finding a safe space to share views, to engaging in media, or to contributing initiatives to support other refugee communities. Aligning these motivations for a collective goal can also take time. Often charities cannot afford this delay and decisions need to be made quickly for creating new services, co-producing new campaign actions, or responding to a new legislation or policy that undermines the very core of right to asylum, which we are unfortunately experiencing right now.

For real purposeful involvement, we need to carry out strategic recruitment of people with relevant lived experience.

For voluntary organisations that have one single service and focus, it may well be worth creating an advisory group. But in most cases, a lack of resources and time lead to some engagement with experts by experience that cannot go up the ladder of participation towards reciprocal partnership and co-production.

For real purposeful involvement, we need to carry out strategic recruitment of people with relevant lived experience. “Word of mouth” is a common method used to recruit for lived experience groups, and sometimes we cannot say no to a refugee who sought asylum ten years ago who wants to be involved in the group. I have been in situations where there were only two lived experience members who have relevant lived experience of being impacted by a specific policy, so I couldn’t co-produce decisions about the policy even though I have a very strong advisory group.

Furthermore, we need advisory groups to have experts by experience who are not from our organisational culture and who bring unique insights to challenge us. We need rotation of people with lived experience in groups to have a dynamic challenge of decisions. It is often much more effective to carry out a strategic recruitment for a time-bound, specific project where you hear from people with relevant lived experience, rather than anyone who has been a refugee or a migrant.

If we are not going to follow advice and suggestions of a lived experience advisory group, then what is the purpose of creating one?

Finally, an advisory group with a broad purpose may want to do different initiatives that may exceed the remit and expertise of a voluntary organisation. These changes in direction often lack strategic alignment with organisational ambitions and without resources it may not be followed, which damages the purpose-driven involvement. If we are not going to follow advice and suggestions of a lived experience advisory group, then what is the purpose of creating one? ■

Let us know what you think about our ambitions regarding involving people with lived experience. We are happy to share our learnings so far, so please don’t hesitate to email us at involvement@refugeecouncil.org.uk if you’d like to have a chat.