With the scale and complexity of our clients’ issues only increasing, it became clear that our influence within national organisations would become an important way of advocating and campaigning on our clients’ behalf. We identified key national organisations that were the most influential in our clients’ lives, whether public or private, and began to build better collaborative relationships with each of their regional leadership teams.
Through this work we’ve improved how vulnerable and urgent client issues are treated, tackled unfair policy and practice raised by our clients, and provided valuable input on how some of these organisations operate in Kent. We believe that this regular contact with a mix of large, national bodies, and on-the-ground support services like food banks, gives us a better understanding of our communities, and a better platform on which to take action on the issues they face.