Berkeley x Crisis: Co-production, Centring Lived Experience at the Heart of Ending Homelessness

Co-production: Centring Lived Experience at the Heart of Ending Homelessness

This blog is written by Corin Look, Partnership and Co-production Coordinator at Crisis

Thanks to the Berkeley Foundation’s generous support, Crisis has established a brand-new role in our Brent Skylight centre: Co-production and Partnership Co-ordinator. This dedicated full-time post is helping us embed the insight, ideas, and leadership of people with lived experience of homelessness into the borough’s long-term mission to end homelessness for good.

Homelessness in the borough of Brent is one of the highest in the UK, with one in ten residents currently on Brent Council’s housing list (33,000 households), meaning this role will directly impact the local community.

What Co-production Really Means

Co-production starts from a simple truth: people with lived experience know what needs to change. Their insight, resilience and creativity are essential to designing solutions that actually work.

It challenges the traditional ‘us and them’ model of service delivery. Instead, it brings people together at every level - from those currently experiencing homelessness to frontline workers and senior leaders - and asks how we can share power and make decisions collectively.

Co-production only works when hierarchies are broken down. It recognises that frontline staff hold expertise that is just as valuable as organisational leadership, and that people experiencing homelessness must be supported to influence the decisions that shape their lives.

Co-production in Action: Brent’s Journey

To build Brent’s co-production approach, we began by learning from what already exists - especially peer-led work like the Brent Service User Council (B3).

From these conversations, we developed the idea for a new peer-led group, made up of Crisis members who have experienced homelessness themselves. In April 2025, we held the first workshops, and the group chose their name: Voices for Homeless.

Across two days, members built trust, explored the barriers people face in Brent, and started identifying actions that could drive change. Space was created both to speak openly about challenges and to plan what’s possible.

Since then, the group has already begun shaping key areas of local policy and practice from feeding into Brent Council’s Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy to contributing to new initiatives, creating training materials, and developing their own projects.

What We’re Learning

Two key learnings have already emerged:

1. Women need dedicated, safe spaces to participate

Although women attended the initial workshops, sustaining their involvement in a highly male-populated environment has been difficult. To properly engage women facing homelessness, we must build spaces where they feel safe, supported, and heard.

2. Co-production isn’t a one-size-fits-all opportunity

People currently experiencing homelessness can find it hard to engage in strategic discussions, especially when external visitors may not understand daily realities. Preparing visitors properly, advocating for participants, and matching opportunities to someone’s stage of their journey are essential to making co-production safe and meaningful.

What’s Next

Voices for Homeless is now focused on becoming more visible across Brent. Over the coming months, the group will:

• Present at the Brent Homelessness Forum
• Host a community stall at Brent Hubs
• Continue developing member-led initiatives

As co-production grows across the borough, lived experience will become increasingly central to how decisions are made.

A Shared Commitment to Co-production

Crisis is committed to co-production being a driving force in ending homelessness. Berkeley Foundation’s investment has made this possible - strengthening our advocacy, amplifying the voice of lived experience, and supporting meaningful change across Brent.

We are already seeing progress: co-production now features prominently in Brent Council’s new Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy, and Adult Social Care is holding regular co-production meetings.

When people with lived experience shape services and policies, we move closer to systems that are truly person-centred and a future where homelessness can be ended for everyone.

Written by: Corin Look, Partnership and Co-production coordinator

We would like to thank the Berkeley Foundation for their ongoing support to Crisis and commitment to ending homelessness for good. Read more on how they have previously supported us here.