Reflections by Suneet Sharma
Embedding lived experience is key to entrenching equity of representation, beneficiary voices and ensuring you remain engaged with the right stakeholders in fulfilling your charity’s mission.
At ItGetsBetterUK, an England and Wales charity where I was a trustee from 2021-24, this represented a series of opportunities when navigating supporting LGBTQIA+ youth’s mental health. Here I share some of the learnings from our process of growing engagement and voice in the LGBTQ+ community and my reflections on how this relates to good governance.
A bit of background
Established in late 2017, ItGetsBetterUK is a message as well as a charity- it supports LGBTQIA+ youth with the message that no matter how you are feeling it gets better being LGBTQIA+. This channels experiences and insight from within the LGBTQIA+ community, stories of hope and support, and provides them a platform to reach LGBTQIA+ youth, and the community, who need it.
When I applied to be a board member, I noted the candidness and sensitivity of the chair and other trustees as part of the recruitment process. They spoke passionately about how their own lived experiences were valued at the charity and helped to inform their approach to its work, in the decisions they made and stories they told.
Learning from and sharing lived experiences
When I joined the charity most of our presence was on social media and hosted on our website in videos, and I saw an opportunity to highlight lived experiences via other means. I set about building a blog for the charity, helping complement its voice of hope with messages and storytelling from those within the community.
Whilst interviews were conducted with standardised questions, interviewees were encouraged to share their own journeys and lived experience. Diverse views were actively sought including from board members themselves, so LGBTQ+ youth could see themselves in those who were writing.
The blogs spoke candidly and courageously about mental health challenges and sharing learnings for the community from lived experience. It was a privilege to host those reflections and be able to share them. Where necessary content warnings were used to ensure readers were safeguarded.
These stories provided the board with insights into a broader range of lived experiences as well as a successful outlet to achieve the charity’s objects, connecting with the community. Fellow board members commented on having read the blogs at meetings and asked questions when I reported on its progress, which reflected their interest in amplifying diverse voices as well as supporting the community.
Training for board members
Acknowledging the intersection between LGBTQIA+ lived experiences and mental health at the heart of the charity’s mission, we ran mental health first aider training for all volunteers, including board members. This was crucial to ensuring mental health was something we reflected our commitment to within the charity. As a board member I saw participating in the training as vital to my work at the charity, an opportunity to support our volunteers and key to leadership that acknowledged centring lived experience as part of our governance.
Our volunteers and board members would also attend prides and community events, engaging directly with the community, a responsibility we all took very seriously. Running this training equipped us with tools to sensitively open up conversations with volunteers and those within the community, to learn from and honour their lived experiences.
Drawing on my own lived experience
A third tranche of work which enabled us to develop our conversations around lived experience was building our support resources. In particular, I was asked for any Asian-specific LGBTQIA+ support resources or partners I could recommend, as a board member this also gave me an opportunity to further use my lived experience to benefit others.
This multi-faceted approach to embedding lived experiences provided a framework for community engagement and bringing the community into decision making with the charity in the future – crucial for us in supporting the community with authenticity, sensitivity and fostering belonging at time when LGBTQIA+ rights are under threat.
About Suneet Sharma
Suneet Sharma is an experienced trustee, a governance specialist, and current Deputy CEO of Governance, Risk and Compliance for Proud Changemakers. Connect with Suneet on LinkedIn.
