VTCT Foundation London Showcase: 8th July 2022
Why It’s Time For New Ways Of Working
One message which shone through our recent London Showcase event was the importance of building relationships with others in the visible difference arena.
Having joined Changing Faces as Chief Executive in May last year, Heather Blake is a relative newcomer to this field but quickly discovered the values of being part of the Appearance Collective. We caught up with her to find out more about her involvement with the VTCT Foundation, and to hear more about the charity’s ongoing work to support those living with visible difference.
How have you benefitted from being part of the Appearance Collective community?
There’s no doubt that being part of the association has helped strengthen our relationships with other charities working in this field, and facilitated greater collaboration and more mutual signposting.
Coming from a different healthcare background (Heather joined Changing Faces in May 2021 from Prostate Cancer UK), I found VTCT’s training days particularly invaluable as they gave me the opportunity to hear other senior leaders share their experiences.
It’s clear that the appearance sector faces different challenges to other health-related charities, so being able to talk to others with more experience in this area, share research findings and discuss learnings has been important. It really is a great network which works on many levels.
How has VTCT funding helped you reach more people and improve your effectiveness?
Changing Faces’ research has shown the nearly one in five people in the UK self-identify as having a visible difference or disfigurement, and that they are often vulnerable to loneliness, social anxiety and low self-esteem. Our primary focus is therefore to empower even more people to live with confidence.
The funding allowed us to add an extra practitioner, helping boost our one-to-one counselling service and double our capacity to support people. However, by looking at our historic reach across the UK, it became clear that our online resources and capability are some of the most effective ways of helping even more people and, unsurprisingly, there’s been a big jump in visitors to our website over the last year.
Whilst we had devised and tested our online peer group chat service before Covid, and had an online community, the pandemic really cemented these sessions as an effective new way of working. What’s more, with so much of our face-to-face work having a South-East focus, the last few years really highlighted the urgency of ensuring we boosted our digital capability. This includes digitising many of our admin processes to drive internal efficiencies, and introducing additional content and online resources to improve the user experience and help more people all across the country.
With more people comfortable with web chats and video calls, VTCT’s support allowed us to develop our peer group chat service, which people can access through an internal referral process. These groups are fairly intense and follow a structured approach, with between six and eight people attending the facilitated sessions across whichever of the two mediums they prefer over eight weeks. What we found is these sessions create a safe space for people to open up, and help create a sense of community through which attendees can learn what worked well for others and share different techniques, book recommendations, etc.
Over the last year we’ve hosted five groups and helped 32 people, with a sixth group already underway. It’s been wonderful to see people’s confidence growing as a direct result of their participation. And, best of all, we can see how peer group chats deliver genuine value to people, from boosting self esteem to helping them develop ways to cope with negative reactions.
There’s absolutely no doubt that the VTCT grant helped us increase our reach quite significantly, and that increasing our voice is helping us reach more people in need of support.
What’s next for Changing Faces?
The work we’ve done thanks to VTCT funding has helped us lay the groundwork for future activities that will increase our reach even further.
Not only does being part of the Appearance Collective allow us to signpost people to condition-specific charities and help them access the most appropriate psychological support, but it also opens doors for us as a natural side-effect of being introduced to other similarly-focused organisations.
Building on the VTCT-funded “New Ways of Working” project, we are now working towards the goals of our new five-year strategy. One of these is to ensure that by 2027 everyone with a visible difference who needs support will be able to access it. Partnerships with other organisations, from health professionals and the NHS to fellow front-line charities will be key to achieving this goal, by growing support and by increasing public understanding and acceptance of visible difference.
This year we’re conducting a lot of research with people living with a visible difference and looking at additional ways to measure our impact to help us determine the best way forward, ensuring we can increase our reach and provide life-changing support and educational services whilst maintaining the quality levels needed.
It’s an ambitious strategy and there’s a lot we need to do over the next few years to grow our services. But, true to Changing Faces’ long-term vision, we won’t stop until everyone with a visible difference or disfigurement receives the support and respect they deserve.
