2024 – 2025 Listening Together Report

Co-production is at the heart of our approach at Trust Links. We work alongside people with lived experience in the design, delivery and evaluation of the services. We recognise the value of lived experience in inspiring hope and fostering recovery.

During the Autumn of 2024 and Spring of 2025, our team of Peer Members and Volunteers undertook a series of engagement workshops across Castle Point and Rochford, gathering the voices and experiences of more than 100 people, using methods learnt through our partnership with Citizens UK.

Here are the Recommendations:

• Invest in local, face-to-face support options that are flexible, inclusive, and non-clinical in feel especially for those who are digitally excluded or isolated.
• Embed lived experience into service design at every level, ensuring Co-Production isn’t a one-off event, but an ongoing relationship with communities.
• Fund preventative and community-based initiatives, such as peer support groups, youth projects, and drop-in wellbeing hubs that create meaningful connections before a crisis point.
• Improve service continuity and follow-up care by tackling staff shortages and enabling smoother collaboration between services so people aren’t repeatedly telling their story from scratch.
• Strengthen mental health education in schools, workplaces, and communities, and provide self-advocacy training to empower individuals to seek help earlier.

This project has shown us that people know what they need and when they’re given the space to speak, they offer not just insight, but hope. Our ask is simple: let’s listen, and act together.

The full report can be found below. Please get in touch if you would like to discuss this and similar projects.