Annual Review 2025: Leading with values

Right from the very beginning of Just Ideas, it was our intention to work towards social environmental justice. During the 18 years we’ve been working together, as a company and a collaborative, in partnership with other organisations, our purpose has been consistent: to create a more equitable, just and inclusive world.

We’re interested in using the world’s resources more equitably, and in shifting power towards individuals and communities, especially those less likely to be heard, and those less likely to occupy positions of power. Together with our associates, we work to make contact with people who have been marginalised. We engage with them, listen to them, and make sure they have a voice, so that communicating their perspectives can be a meaningful action towards sharing and redistributing power. 

You’ll find this thread running through the work we’ve done together this year. It’s there in how we think about projects, how we involve associates in our work, how we build relationships, how we provide opportunities to reflect on practice, how we model that reflecting and transfer of knowledge, and how we work on co-designing projects and processes. It’s something we also practice internally at Just Ideas, bringing together environmental sustainability – paying attention to what we buy, where we get our energy and how we travel – with our focus on equity, diversity and inclusion. Our purpose isn’t just what we say and who we work with, it’s how we live and work.

“What makes Just Ideas so great to work with is their honest dedication. They don’t just talk about their values; they live them out in every project.”
Monica Golding, Associate, Just Ideas

Here are our highlights from 2025, which we’re sharing with you to celebrate the progress we’re making collectively. We hope you find this inspiring and encouraging, and that you’ll keep in touch to share your own progress, and explore ways that we can work together to make an even greater impact. We look forward to doing even more of this kind of vital work in 2026.

Living and sharing social and environmental justice practices

Our training workshop on Voice, Access and Inclusion in social research for IVAR this Spring was a real standout. We brought together a team of trainers with lived experience and expertise in disability and neurodivergence, to deliver an interactive session that was meaningful and thought-provoking. Our Just Ideas team was made up of Aideen, a disability speaker, trainer, writer and campaigner with cerebral palsy; Ali, a theatre practitioner who works closely with people with learning disabilities; Eddy, a facilitator and visual practitioner who identifies as neurodivergent and has done a lot of work around the intersectionality between neurodiversity and gender identity; and Helen who has a strong commitment to access and inclusion.

“I especially appreciated the interactive approach, which encouraged me to think critically about applying the training in everyday practice. The team created a safe and supportive space for learning and open discussion, which made it easy for our team to ask questions and explore sensitive topics with confidence.”
Jo Brown, Deputy Director of Research, IVAR

“I loved the way we each brought different perspectives and approaches, including discussion, games, visuals and theatre, and enacted the values of the training in the process of creating and sharing it.”
Eddy Phillips, Associate, Just Ideas

The Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Policy that we published this year not only talks about our commitment to actively promoting equity, diversity and inclusion, but goes further to embed them in the way we work. We ask our clients to adopt our terms of reference when we work together, to make sure that our values are aligned. 

Alongside our EDI Policy, we have developed an Inclusion and Access Checklist for events. We have already shared this with multiple organisations who have shown interest in it and started to put it into practice. Please contact us for more information.

“The session that you ran has really stayed with us as a team and will help us in our practice. We have already started putting certain things into practice, such as creating a statement that we can use in event/interview invites about how to support participants’ full participation.”
Katie Turner, Director of Research, IVAR

“Just Ideas invested in a ramp so I, as a wheelchair user, could access the workplace. It was a simple act with a profound message: inclusion isn’t just something we talk about, it’s something we do.”
Aideen Blackborough, Associate, Just Ideas

Supporting projects as community engagement specialists

This year Just Ideas completed our work on the UK Covid-19 Inquiry listening exercise: Every Story Matters. We’re proud to have worked with Ipsos and in partnership with WSA Community on such an important and far-reaching piece of work. It’s been an honour to work with such a diverse range of people and communities around the UK, and with our outstanding team of Just Ideas associates.

Over the past three years, we’ve had the privilege of engaging with, and listening to, people working in healthcare, people from marginalised communities experiencing health inequalities, people with complex health and mental health needs, people who are rurally isolated, people experiencing structural exclusion or multiple deprivation, young mums who had babies during the pandemic, people with care needs and in the care workforce, unpaid carers, people with long-term illnesses, people with learning disabilities, nomadic people, people working in education, and people who have been bereaved. It’s given us deeply valuable experience and insights that we will take forward into our future work.

“It’s been great to continue working with WSA Community and Just Ideas to deliver the UK Covid-19 Inquiry’s Every Story Matters listening programme. Their community development approach has been crucial to ensure the voices of those most impacted by the pandemic are heard, including working with people who faced life-changing bereavements to plan and facilitate a series of engagement events.”  

Daniel Cameron, Research Director, Government and Society, Ipsos UK

We’re pleased to continue our working relationship with Ipsos on Addiction Healthcare Goals, in partnership with WSA Community. Ipsos is the lead partner in a consortium for this programme, run by the Office of Life Sciences, part of the Department of Health and Social Care. A key aim of the programme is to use addiction healthcare data more effectively to design research, treatment and technology that helps save and improve people’s lives, and reduces harm to people and communities. Just Ideas’ role is to make sure the perspectives and voices of the healthcare service users are properly represented in the research and recommendations, as well as the voices of people working with them at a grassroots, frontline level.

Just Ideas has put together a strong team of people with lived experience of addiction healthcare, both from a service user and a worker/volunteer perspective. Together with WSA Community, we have made ten ‘case study’ visits across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, talking with and interviewing service users and providers. We’ve used our trauma-informed training to keep interviews and group discussions safe. The Peer Advisory Group of people with lived experience of addiction treatment and recovery that we brought together has been working alongside us throughout – sharing their experience to help shape the language we use, and the research materials and methodology. Their next role is to reflect with us on what we are hearing from the case studies, and help shape recommendations.

“It has been a unique opportunity to take part in this important UK research that draws on the experiences of people who have received treatment or are in recovery from addiction. Everyone really enjoyed being part of the case study group and being asked to share their voices and experiences. As a participant of the Peer Advisory Group for the programme also, I valued the chance to guide the process to make sure people feel able to engage. This meant using language that wouldn’t create barriers as well as supporting them to feel safe to share their experience.”    

Case study participant and Peer Advisory Group member

“Just Ideas created a programme that brought care and attention to the task of sharing lived experience of treatment data, by involving service users in programme design from the outset. And, by placing high value on the participants who gave their time to this work, we enabled them to feel heard, and safe to share their experiences. Balancing facilitator and lived experience roles was key in providing equitable spaces for peoples voices to be heard – and especially to make a difference to future treatment outcomes for others.”

Charlotte Pace, Associate, Just Ideas

“WSA Community and Just Ideas have been brilliant partners on our research about addiction treatment data. Wendy, Helen and the wider teams have handled a complex study with care, enthusiasm and professionalism. Their approach to engagement with people with lived experience of addiction has been well planned, thorough and understanding of the lives and needs of the people we are engaging with. It has been a pleasure to work with WSA Community and Just Ideas and we are confident that the work will produce really valuable findings that will help inform policy.”

Ciaran Mulholland, Research Director, Ipsos

Just Ideas is proud to be taking an active role in such large-scale, multi-disciplinary partnerships on influential, UK-wide projects. We hope to take on more of this type of work in 2026 and beyond.

Offering lively, engaging training and facilitation

We kicked off 2025 by facilitating an away day for Help on Your Doorstep (HOYD), a charity that works to improve the health and wellbeing of people in Islington, especially those who are vulnerable and isolated. Bringing their three teams together, we tried out a new approach to visualising interconnecting needs and priorities which proved really effective. The outcomes were a better understanding of each team’s needs, and clarity on how to support each other to deliver on their priorities. We went on to look at how HOYD can demonstrate the difference its work makes, and reach a range of audiences to raise much-needed funds. It’s been a great opportunity to reconnect with HOYD, several years after we first worked together.

Over the summer, we delivered a fun, engaging facilitation training workshop at Local Trust’s away day, focusing on the role of a facilitator and tools for effective facilitation. We made sure to model good practice throughout: getting people to think for themselves; encouraging people to try things out; taking a collaborative approach; and creating visual images to communicate ideas. Drawing on our knowledge of issues that come up when facilitating in community settings, we developed scenarios for group work and presented practical approaches to how to deal with conflict, what happens when a group can’t reach a decision, and what to do when it’s not clear what happens next. We heard participants using the tools we’d introduced, and saying they planned to use them in future sessions.

“Thank you so much for such an engaging and inspiring session. Everyone kept telling me how useful it was, and the managers incorporated some tips and tricks into their own sessions yesterday.”

Pamela Tompsett, Local Trust

Following the success of our Voice, Access and Inclusion training with IVAR, we were invited to work with the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE) and the University of the West of England (UWE) on the Engaged Futures project. This is an initiative to imagine futures for higher education in the UK where knowledge is built openly and inclusively. Just Ideas led a workshop on reimagining higher education for 2045 as a space where disabled people are active leaders and participants at all levels, and where they can aspire to visit, study and work without barriers to access. 

“It was such a great, inclusive session with a motivated team who captured the event creatively – the visual says it all.” 
Dr Esther Oenga, Associate, Just Ideas

It’s been exciting to work with Power to Change on its High Street Innovators project, bringing our co-design, training and facilitation skills to supporting community business. Our founder, Helen, has supported the team in designing and facilitating a series of study visits, encouraging team members to take on elements of the facilitator role. A study visit to Bristol gave us the chance to use tried-and-tested methods like the Margolis Wheel for participatory problem-solving and idea-generation. The result was energetic sharing of learning and experience across the different organisations involved. We’ve also worked with Power To Change’s wider team on using participatory facilitation methods to make the most of gatherings, interviews and meetings.

As a senior research associate with IVAR, Helen has been working on Connecting Health Communities this year, supporting cross-sector partnerships to tackle health inequalities. She facilitated a vibrant workshop with professionals and people with lived and living experience of homelessness, on changing ways of working to reduce health inequalities for homeless people in Leicester and Leicestershire. Outcomes included clear ideas to be explored around oral health for people experiencing homelessness, and around learning from a hub model that could be rolled out in other places. Helen also facilitated a workshop in Somerset around pathways out of hospital for people with dementia.

“Helen brings a unique blend of creative facilitation, fun and innovative methodology in the design and delivery of these workshops, which helps these cross-sector conversations to take place in ways that feel authentic, honest and safe. I really enjoy seeing her facilitate – there is always something new to learn!”

Sonakshi Anand, Senior Researcher, IVAR

In October and November, Just Ideas was proud to produce another round of UN-style model climate conferences in partnership with InterClimate Network. This year, thanks to the good relationships and reputation we’ve built as a partnership, model climate conferences took place in Solihull, Reading, Cheltenham, Birmingham, City of London, Babergh & Mid Suffolk, Wellington and Dudley. Our talented and dedicated team of 10 Just Ideas associates supported students to role-play climate negotiations, exploring the local, national and global implications of climate change and opportunities for local climate action. At a time when we’re hearing conflicting narratives on this subject, it remains vital for us to deal with the reality of climate change, and empower each other to take meaningful, constructive action.

Supporting learning, reflection and change

Our engaging ‘Telling Our Story’ workshop with Brookside Big Local helped them to evaluate the positive difference they’re making. The group really valued the opportunity to celebrate how far they’ve come. Through the focal point of the Big Local project, neighbours on the estate have come together and new community connections have formed. Our associate, Thomas, created a wonderful graphic capturing the themes we identified together.

“The session really helped cement the difference the programme has made and did a lot of good in terms of engagement and morale.”

Tim Edwards, Consultant to Brookside Big Local

Helping organisations to articulate their work, share their story and demonstrate their impact is a service that Just Ideas is skilled in providing. This year, working with IVAR, Richard facilitated a session with the team at Sufra, a charity that aims to prevent hunger, fight poverty and build community in the London borough of Brent. Together we explored Theory of Change, which Sufra has used to articulate the change that they want to see in the world. We successfully built on the ways that staff and volunteers are already gathering evaluation information, and helped to make it more a part of everyday delivery.

We’re now able to share that we have started working as evaluation and learning partners  for The Phoenix Project, which is being delivered by Servol Community Services with funding from Commonweal Housing. This pilot project provides a temporary home for ex-offenders, and support when it is needed for mental and physical health, life skills and future employment and accommodation. This month, we’re running an evaluation co-design session with delivery staff and funders. Our approach will make sure that residents at the accommodation are at the centre of our work. As it’s a pilot, there will be a strong emphasis on learning, for everyone involved. At Just Ideas, we’re used to facilitating this kind of learning process, and we value this opportunity to work towards making a positive impact on people’s lives and futures.

Just Ideas Collaborative

The brilliantly diverse team of skilled, experienced associates who make up our Just Ideas Collaborative plays a pivotal role in enabling our work to happen. We simply could not do the work we do without you. Because we work as a collaborative, Just Ideas is much greater than the sum of its parts. The way we work together, support each other, respond to challenges and share values continues to inspire and motivate us.

We enjoyed the opportunity to meet up in person over the summer, and we look forward to working together and keeping in touch in 2026, following our upcoming Christmas gathering.

Looking ahead to 2026

We’re currently exploring partnerships with organisations with aligned values around justice and change, and discussing ways we can bring our community engagement expertise to large-scale projects. Our extensive work on the UK Covid-19 Inquiry listening exercise showed the impact we can make through our community engagement expertise, and as a collaborative network of skilled, experienced professionals with diverse lived experiences.

We’re looking forward to re-connecting with even more of the organisations and contacts we’ve worked with over the years, in 2026, to explore how we can help each other to work towards positive social change.

Stay connected

If you’re interested in partnering with us, or you’d like to talk about working together, we’d love to hear from you. You can contact us here.

We share our progress and celebrate projects on our blog, as well as on Bluesky and LinkedIn. We’d love it if you’d connect with us.

A big thank you

As always, we’re deeply grateful to all the wonderful people we’ve been able to work with this year. We couldn’t do this work without you. We look forward to keeping in touch and continuing to work together in future.

Helen, Richard, Mary and Mike and the Just Ideas Collaborative.