the greater manchester homelessness action network
Beth set up and managed the co-creation of the Greater Manchester Homelessness Action Network (GMHAN) on behalf of Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham.
The GMHAN was created as a forum by the new Mayor as a method of developing policy and practice through a ‘whole-of-society’ approach. The network, made up of over two hundred people and organisations, was responsible for co-designing the city region’s strategy and action plan to end rough sleeping by 2020 and creating the Greater Manchester Homelessness Prevention Plan through Legislative Theatre, winning the International Observatory on Participatory Democracy award for ‘best practice in citizen participation’.
Co-design, a method of involving the public in the design of policy and services, was utilised within the network to include people who were or had been homeless at the heart of policymaking in the new city region.
Beth built the GMHAN to form a collective of over two hundred individuals and organisations, compromised of: local, regional and national homelessness organisations, all ten Greater Manchester Local Authorities, the voluntary and community sector, people who have been or currently are homeless, the health sector, Police, Housing Providers, Department of Work and Pensions, Justice and Probation organisations, business, faith groups, the Fire Service, social enterprises, research institutions, cultural organisations, activists, funders and local politicians.
MPhil in Social policy
‘Democratic Devolution: An ethnographic study of a ‘whole-of-society approach’ to tackling homelessness in Greater Manchester’.
Beth wrote her thesis exploring the Greater Manchester Homelessness Action Network (GMHAN) as a case study in the development of social policymaking in a newly devolved city region.
The research looks at how the GMHAN created space for the inclusion of Greater Manchester citizens in the design of policy in a newly devolved city region through ‘democratic devolution’ and how this could be a model for future governments and civil society. The research, undertaken over an 18 month period is available to download as a full thesis here and will be available in summary form soon.
policy change through co-design
Beth also co-founded the Manchester Homelessness Partnership, while she was a Manchester City Centre Councillor (co-leading the arts, culture and heritage section), co-created the Manchester Street Poem and set up the Households in Temporary Accommodation All-Party Parliamentary Group with Justlife and Shared Health Foundation. These forums are still responsible for developing local and national policy.
Beth was responsible for writing the organisational strategy for Shared Health focussed on developing homeless families advocacy nationally, as well as founding the APPG, this included securing funding to work with Anthony Luvera on the UK’s first temporary accommodation photography/advocacy project with families and Greater Manchester’s first policy dedicated to homeless families. She also wrote the press and comms strategy which resulted in unprecedented local and national press coverage.
Through working in homelessness locally, nationally and internationally, across politics, policy, practice and research for ten years Beth became an expert in creating forums for policy change and co-designing strategy with people who had been or are homeless.
This experience shaped her understanding of what change is possible when you bring people together to discuss issues of social justice and act with urgency. She has used this experience across a diverse range of areas including environmental issues, arts and culture, urban planning and end of life care.