LEAP – Lived Experience Advisory Panel
Real voices. Real insight. Real change.
At Myrtle House, we believe lived experience brings insight that truly strengthens our work. People who have faced challenge are not just recipients of support — they are experts in their own lives, whose perspectives help shape how we work.
Our Lived Experience Advisory Panel (LEAP) brings together people with personal experience of hardship and change to inform, guide, and improve our services. LEAP ensures we build support with our community, not just for it, keeping dignity, participation, and real world insight at the centre of everything we do.
LEAP is made up of people from across our community who bring lived experience of the challenges many households face — including food insecurity, financial pressure, poor mental health, and isolation. Their insight helps ensure our services are shaped by real experience and real need.
Some first connected with Myrtle House to access support. Today, some are volunteers, contributors, and now employed, using their experience and skills to support others and strengthen our work.
LEAP members provide practical insight, honest feedback, and thoughtful ideas. They help us understand what works, where barriers exist, and how support can be more accessible, respectful, and effective.
Their role is not only to share experience, but to help shape better responses — strengthening services, informing decisions, and building more resilient community support systems for the future.
Who Are the Voices of LEAP ?
How LEAP shapes our work?
LEAP members are actively involved across many areas of life at Myrtle House. Their lived experience insight helps ensure our services, decisions, and future plans reflect the real needs and realities of the community we serve.
LEAP contributes by:
Co-designing services and shaping new initiatives
Supporting community research and storytelling projects
Contributing to strategy and future planning
Leading and participating in Community Conversations
Training and advising staff and volunteers, helping build understanding of hardship and access barriers
Raising awareness of the real impacts of poverty and inequality
Through this work, lived experience is not added on — it is built into how we design, deliver, and improve support. This strengthens accountability, improves access, and helps create more responsive and resilient community services.
Voices of Change
LEAP’s work is not only behind the scenes. Members also contribute publicly through storytelling, research, and community dialogue — helping improve understanding of hardship, recovery, and resilience.
Through projects such as Voices of Change and participation in academic research partnerships, LEAP members share lived experience insight that informs both local service design and wider learning about food poverty and community support.
Using film and open conversation, they help present a more honest and human picture of hardship — challenging stigma and increasing understanding.
Lived Experience Voices
“I received help from the foodbank. I stopped drinking. I now volunteer and give back.”
“Without the extra support, I would still be relying on food parcels and my mental health would have gotten worse. I feel I’ve found a community where I belong.”
Why It Matters
People with direct experience of hardship are often excluded from service design and decision making. LEAP helps ensure that lived experience is included in how we plan, deliver, and improve our support.
Their insight helps make our services more accessible, more practical, and more responsive to real needs. It strengthens how we listen, how we design support, and how we remove barriers to access.
By embedding lived experience into our approach, we build greater trust, reduce stigma, and create services that are shaped with the community as well as for the community.
Want to Get Involved?
If you’ve walked a hard road, your voice could help light the way for someone else. We welcome expressions of interest from people who’ve used our services and want to shape the future of the project.
We’ll provide training, support, and a caring environment to grow your confidence and influence.
Your experience matters. Your story has power. Your voice could change lives.