No Wrong Door – Annual Gathering 2025
2nd June 2025
Reflections on our Annual Gathering
On the 25th of April, more than 80 No Wrong Door network members attended our Annual Gathering, where we:
- Heard from the Tell Your Story working group and co-design team
- Received the latest updates on the Demonstrations of Change within the Child Poverty Programme
- Took part in member-led workshops
- And heard from Mike Burns, Programme Director for the Child Poverty Programme
Tell Your Story
With Zsara McEwan, Struan Fraser, and citizen co-designers, Steven and Hiba
Tell Your Story was a one-year project that explored how to ensure seamless access to comprehensive support services, regardless of the initial point of contact.
It centred the citizen experience while leveraging expertise and organisational knowledge to create a better understanding of the barriers faced by citizens and No Wrong Door partners.
The team used these insights to facilitate a series of innovative and interactive sessions, co-designing a set of criteria that should be met to deliver a caring and effective service. The team then discussed the conditions that need to be met to make this a reality.
Watch the short video below to find out more.
The next steps in this work are to share the learnings with key decision-makers, hold a celebration event to thank partners and citizens for their contributions, and publish a report detailing the process, findings, and recommendations. We will continue to keep you updated on our progress.
Updates from on ‘Demonstrations of Change’
Click below for a summary of each of the Demonstration of Change (DoC) presentations.
Southside Central
Andy McLinden from Glasgow City Council presented an update on the Southside Central DoC. The DoC in Southside Central initially sought to provide financial capability and holistic support to 146 families in the area who were reportedly living in deep poverty.
When engaging directly with families, it became apparent that many in this area had low language and literacy skills, and English was their second language. Further insights uncovered that ESOL provision in the city is disparate and stretched to capacity, with long waiting lists.
A new co-design project will engage with citizens and providers in the area to configure solutions to improve outcomes for families for whom English is a second language.
They are still offering financial capability to around 40 families, and are also exploring childcare provision and employability programmes.
Calton
Natalie Phillips is the WSL for the Calton DoC led by the anchor organisation, Clyde Gateway.
It is a place-based, multi-agency initiative designed to tackle poverty and improve long-term outcomes for families, particularly those with children aged 0-5 at risk of deep poverty. It aims to provide a comprehensive, person-centred approach to early intervention, employment support, and overall community well-being.
The Calton Ward DoC focuses on removing barriers to sustainable employment by addressing structural challenges that prevent individuals from accessing and maintaining work.
The Calton DoC is now entering its implementation phase, testing a series of small-scale, community-co-designed interventions. These include a childcare innovation programme, an ESOL to employment pathway, and bespoke employment support underpinned by employer engagement. The learning from these interventions will help identify and shape scalable models with the potential to benefit communities across the wider city.
Govan
Gillian Evans, Workstream Lead for the Govan DoC, provided information on the progress in Govan.
The Govan DoC is working with Jobs and Business Glasgow and Govan Help to provide holistic support to 159 families with children under the age of five.
Through data matching and discussions with the DWP and Govan Help, it has been demonstrated that many families in Govan face significant and complex barriers to accessing support and employment.
Citizen engagement sessions are ongoing to learn more about the families’ circumstances and the obstacles they face. The sessions will focus on housing, caring for children with additional support needs and mental health.
By listening to families’ lived experiences, Gillian hopes to reshape the Govan DoC’s focus to respond to the community’s needs.
Workshops
We also had three fantastic workshops led by NWD partner organisations.
Trauma-Informed Practice within a Community Setting
Jill Mackay, CEO of North United Communities, started the session by explaining the definitions of adversity, trauma and how trauma can present in children and adults. She then described how NUC responds to trauma when working with the community, emphasising the importance of safety, understanding, compassion and trust. This was followed by a presentation from Anthony Morrow of Sanctuary Housing, in which he discussed his role as a Community Connector, emphasising the trauma-informed approach he takes to understanding communities, resolving housing-related issues, and providing sustainable support. Anthony also emphasised the importance of staff well-being, particularly when working with vulnerable individuals. He recommended familiarising yourself with the ‘Window of Tolerance’.
Empowering Marginalised Communities: Breaking Barriers, Building Futures
We were joined by Dr Radia Mohammed and Dr Yaser Ahmed to hear how Together Reaching Higher is responding to the challenges faced by marginalised communities to support skills development, social integration and transformative change. They addressed the intersectional challenges faced by marginalised communities, including language barriers, legal restraints, and limited access to services. The session showcased some of the projects Together Reaching Higher has worked on with impact testimonies, followed by an exercise where participants were asked to consider a migrants pathway to integration.
The Story of CAKE
The founder of Listen Up Story Telling, Dr Kath MacDonald, introduced her social enterprise, which aims to “enhance healthy spaces and effective places through storytelling”. Listen Up has four key areas of work through storytelling: for wellbeing, for culture change, for impact and evaluation, and performance. Kath shared a case study of her project, Supporting and Enhancing Empowerment and Development through Storytelling (SEED), in which she helped community nurses explore their experiences of work-related stress, promote well-being and resilience, and co-create the CAKE toolkit. There were then some insights into the power and uses of storytelling, as well as an opportunity for groups to discuss the CAKE resource and explore how they might apply storytelling in their own work context.
CAKE: a recipe for self-care, well-being and team resilience-building is available as a digital resource.
You can find the slides from each session here.
Feedback
Closing remarks were delivered by Mike Burns, Director of the Child Poverty Programme, who reminded us to consider the impact one good person can have on shaping and improving someone’s life. Whether you are a front-line worker or not, being a member of No Wrong Door means doing all that you can to help the person in front of you.
We’ve received lots of positive feedback from the event and look forward to seeing you all again in October for our Challenge Poverty Week events, where we hope to offer you more insightful workshops.
Please find out more about NWD in our brand new Information Brochure. Feel free to download it and share it with colleagues to help them understand our mission.
If you have any questions about No Wrong Door or its events, please email Kirsty Whiteside at Kirsty.Whiteside@glasgow.gov.uk.