Sam Ward Email & Phone Number

My work and belief in participation and involvement began when I started working as a support worker and advocate in residential children’s homes and then hostels for homeless young people. Working with children and young people to ensure that decisions taken by statutory services involved them in meaningful ways and that they had as much influence over and voice in these decisions as possible. Since then I have managed a hostel and staff team and gained experience of the responsibilities of keeping 26 young people and a staff team safe and supported. I have led central office teams in involvement and volunteering and have co-produced and co-delivered participation programmes. I have worked with teams at all levels to involve young people in a charity and it’s decisions.I was fortunate to be involved is the set up of a new charity in 2017 and have learnt so much from creating a charity around those it was created to support and using involvement and community approaches. It has made me appreciate how much can be achieved when you start with these as guiding principles. Seeing The Magpie Project grow over the years and now being Chair of the board of trustees is a huge source of pride and learning for me.In my current role I lead Involvement and Membership. Bringing participation approaches to 40,000 members is an exciting challenge and we are exploring if we can create 2 way relationships on mass between members and the charity. Ultimately I believe charities should be led and shaped by those with lived experience of the cause and everything I do is about advancing that. I am always interesting in talking to others about and sharing my experiences on how to address power balances, how to make sure there is value involved for everyone taking part in involvement and how to ensure this work is meaningful and genuine. Whilst it can be rewarding to create programs that bring participants into the work of charities. I believe we should also be questioning the structures and processes of charities and how we can open these up to be more transparent and involving.

Listed skills include Workshop Facilitation, Youth Work, Event Management, Social Media, and 11 others.