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Do With

  • 17 January 2025

A call to action

Four hands clasping eachother

Radical and hopeful change in how public services work with people and communities is urgently needed. Do With is a network of people and organisations calling for a radical shift in the public sector from ‘doing to’ to ‘doing with’.

We have come together to ask others to join us in making this change, this started with an online event on 26 March.

Catch up on the panel discussion from the event below or contact the Do With team to find out more about becoming part of the movement.

There are already great examples of this positive change happening across the country. Change that: 

  • enables individuals, families and communities from many backgrounds to work as equals alongside frontline workers in the health and care sector, councils, schools, the police and other services 

  • shares power and resource, opens up decision-making, and improves the places where we live 

  • taps into the power of our communities and human relationships to prevent illness, crisis and poverty rather than just respond to it 

  • directly addresses, through collaboration, the growing pressures being placed on the public and voluntary sectors that are driving up waiting times, reducing service quality and pushing public finances to breaking point  

  • most fundamentally, does things with rather than to people and communities while also freeing and resourcing them to do more for themselves on their own terms. 

But we also know that there is huge resistance to these ways of working across the public sector. A resistance that:  

  • leaves those who work in or with public services feeling powerless and frustrated 

  • deepens the excessive hierarchy and the discrimination that silences the voices of frontline workers and the people and communities they work with 

  • maintains the overwhelming focus on top–down performance targets and financial ‘efficiencies’ rather than actual improvements in people’s health and well-being 

  • keeps public services siloed and often in competition with one another rather than providing holistic, seamless care and support through collaboration  

  • and, most importantly, sustains a culture that strongly favours doing things to rather than with people. 

We know our hopes, as well as our frustrations, are shared very widely. That is why we call on those working in or with the public sector to take inspiration from the positive change already happening and actively explore how we can all make it happen in our own work.  

Catch up with the event

If you’ve been inspired by the Do With vision and want to work with others to shift the public sector away from its current ‘do to’ mindset and practices towards a ‘do with’ approach, please catch up with the panel discussion from our online meeting, which took place on Wednesday 26 March. The event was free and open to anyone working in or with the public sector who wants to move towards a more humane, democratic and impactful way of working. 

Do With is not a new organisation or formal campaign. Instead, it hopes to be a grassroots movement for change led by the people who are part of it. As such, the event was a space for attendees to share ideas on how they would like to deliver change and to connect people together who want to work on specific ideas. Those ideas could operate within public sector teams and organisations or within communities or both; and could operate at local, regional or national level. It is up to you and all those inspired by the Do With vision to take it forward. 

Panel discussion

Panellists:

  • Samira Ben Omar, Co-Founder Community Voices and Community Champions

  • Clenton Farquharson, Associate Director, Think Local, Act Personal

  • Katie Kelly, Former Deputy Chief Executive, East Ayrshire Council, and Chair, New Local

  • Cormac Russell, Managing Director, Nurture Development

  • Mark Spencer, GP, Mountview Practice, Fleetwood

Join the movement

We're asking those inspired by Do With ways of working to share their views on how change can be brought about and their experience of trying to work differently. You will have an opportunity to share your views when you register for the event or you can email: [email protected].

Supporting networks

We look forward to working with you and the many others who know that a better public sector and a happier, healthier population is within our grasp. If you'd like to join the network as organisation or individual contact: [email protected]

Better Way Network; Care City; Caribbean & African Health Network (CAHN); Church Action on Poverty; Community Led Support (NDTi); DemocracyNext;  Florence Nightingale Foundation; Healthwatch; Intelligent Health; Involve; Local Trust; Locality; NAVCA; National Voices; New Local; NHS Horizons; Nutriri; OUTpatients; Patients Association; Platform Places; Power to Change; Picker; Sickle Cell Society; Social Care Futures; Social Enterprise UK; The Health Creation Alliance; The King’s Fund; TransActual; Ways to Wellness; We’re Right Here.

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