Bringing community voice and evidence into decision-making in Blackpool

Amy Butler is the Engagement and Partnerships Manager at Empowerment Charity, with a strong focus on amplifying community voice to influence health and care services. She leads on developing innovative engagement approaches that have lived experience at the heart, ensuring it informs real change across the local and national system.

Empowerment’s work is driven by a commitment to inclusion and reducing health inequalities, working closely with our communities, voluntary sector partners, and system leaders to ensure that services reflect the needs and experiences of the people they serve.

In this session, Amy will: 

• Share practical examples of how Healthwatch Blackpool gathers lived experience from diverse communities, including those whose voices are often underrepresented
• Explore a range of qualitative and participatory methodologies used to capture meaningful community insight (e.g. outreach, engagement events, surveys, co-production approaches)
• Demonstrate how community feedback is translated into evidence that influences service design and system-wide decision-making
• Reflect on challenges, lessons learned, and what has worked well in embedding community voice into local health and care systems
• Highlight opportunities for collaboration between organisations to strengthen the role of lived experience in shaping services

Who should join?

This session will be relevant to anyone in Blackpool who is interested in, or working towards: 

• Embedding lived experience and community voice into health, care, or public service decision-making
• Improving service design, delivery, and outcomes through meaningful engagement with local communities
• Developing inclusive, equitable approaches to reaching underserved or marginalised groups
• Using qualitative evidence and insight to inform strategy, commissioning, or policy
• Building partnerships across sectors to support system change and community-led improvement

Location

This session will take place in-person in Conference Room 3B in Bickerstaffe House. Visitor passes will be provided on the day to attendees outside of Blackpool Council. If the event has sold out or if you are unable to attend in person, you can register to receive a recording of the presentation and we will send this to you via email after the session.

Please see The Big Evidence Fortnight full programme for other sessions you might be interested in.