Reducing the complexity of people's experiences to numbers, graphs and evidence has always been problematic. Is it a necessary business? For policy-makers and professionals evidence is everything if you want to get anything done.
But are we gathering too much evidence and is the very process of gathering data itself stigmatising? This event is for anyone who is questioning our seemingly endless obsession with numbers and is looking to bring new points of view and even challenges to the status quo around evidence gathering.
This online event will focus on three different contributors and their journeys navigating systems of care for people affected by homelessness. These contributors will reflect something of their own journey and what it is like to try and use numbers to create better systems whilst talking about some of the existing problems that exist.
We have a whole new industry of evidence based policy. This event is a must for those who want to question that. The event will include breaks and will also include time for small discussion groups and questions.
Practical info:
This event will take place online. People who book for the event will receive online joining instructions in advance of the event. We expect the event to last no longer then 2 hours.
About the contributors:
Simone Helleren has worked as a researcher and facilitator across the voluntary and statutory sectors with diverse groups focusing on ‘involvement and participation’ frequently using theatre methods for over 30 years. She was awarded an ESRC studentship to complete an MA in Social Research and a PhD at the University of Birmingham (2021). She authored a chapter for Mike Seal's book Participatory Pedagogic Impact Research: Co-production with Community Partners in Action (Routledge) and has co-written a chapter with current colleagues at King’s for an edited book Recalibrating Stigma: Sociologies of Health and Illness (Bristol University Press) due out 2024. She has undertaken research with Homeless Link and Groundswell and currently works with Andy Guise and River Ujhadbor at Kings College London on the UKRI funded project Social Responses to Stigma study.
Beth Watts-Cobbe is the Deputy Director of the Institute for Social Policy, Housing and Equalities Research at Heriot-Watt University. Beth’s research focuses on homelessness, housing and welfare policy, and the ethical dimensions of social policy problems. She has written (with Suzanne Fitzpatrick) a book on Welfare Conditionality published in Routledge’s Key Ideas series; journal articles in Housing Studies, the Journal of Social Policy, the European Journal of Homelessness and Housing, Theory and Society; comment pieces for the Guardian, the Conversation and LSE’s Politics and Policy blog; and commissioned reports for funders including Crisis, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Shelter Scotland, Social Bite and Depaul UK.
Gill Taylor: Gill is an independent researcher, facilitator and activist. Gill has spent 20 years working in homelessness services and specialises in best practice approaches to safeguarding and homelessness that centre lived experience, anti-oppressive practice and trauma-informed systems change. She is a Pathway UK Fellow, the strategic lead for MoH’s Dying Homeless Project and advisor on MOH's campaigning and social change work. She has recently published the Radical Safeguarding Toolkit - Homelessness (Research in Practice).
Background to the event:
This event is part of a series of events we are producing as part of a partnership with the UKRI funded Social Responses to Stigma study based at Kings College London. The study is exploring experiences of stigma and discrimination amongst people who are homeless in south London, and seeks to understand how this stigma is created, mediated or mitigated within particular care and support systems and social contexts.
This event series is exploring the different ways that stigma is experienced by people affected by homelessness from criminalisation through to gathering evidence.
Also in this event series will be a forthcoming episode of our Deep Dive podcast taking place on 22 September and a future event to be announced that will be on 07 November.