Changing jobs and changing systems

Christa Maciver, Advocacy Worker and Researcher at Justlife has successfully gained a funded place on the "System Changers" programme.At the beginning of May 2015 Christa moved from solely working as a project worker at Justlife to taking on a part-time role as researcher, and part-time specialist advocacy worker. As part of this transition she applied to be part of the first cohort of participants on the "System Changers" programme, which aims to enable the voices of frontline workers to inform system change within their organisation and in the wider systems.The programme started with the 10 participants taking part in a residential in the North East. This provided space for the participating frontline workers to learn skills that enable reflection on their insights and the impact those insights could have on systems change. Specifically, the group focussed on mapping. Over the next few months Christa plans to enable Justlife to reflect and learn using mapping tools to look at how our work is understood by service users and think through what we could do to improve our own services.The 6 month course involves input from sector and business professionals, a wealth of resources and a coach for Christa during this time. We are excited about the difference this will make to Christa personally, but also about sharing the learning with all staff at Justlife.System Changers is run by the Point People and funded by LankellyChase Foundation.