Looking back: Agenda Alliance's achievements in 2023

From our projects going from strength to strength, to new recruits joining the team, and work to strengthen our membership, Agenda Alliance has had a busy and fruitful year.

As 2023 draws to a close, we look back on everything we’ve achieved.

2023 marked the start of our bold and ambitious 5-year strategy, outlining how we intend to campaign for change so all women and girls can thrive. This strategic road map sets out our commitments to create lasting change for women and girls with unmet needs: getting government to prioritize their mental health; evidence the racism they experience in public services; reduce young women’s exclusions from school; and, as always, embedding and amplifying their voices and lived experience. You can read it here.

Rooted in our values of intersectionality and collaboration, and our goal to convene a strong, cohesive, and empowered alliance, we kickstarted our alliance development work with a survey of our membership.

This received a hugely positive response, and we want to thank all our members who took the time to engage and contribute their thoughts. We are developing a plan to embed this feedback over the next year, and are looking forward to offering more opportunities for all our members to be involved in shaping our work together.

The year hasn’t been without challenge – in October 2022, our incredible CEO, Indy, was diagnosed with breast cancer. To support her as she took time off to focus on her treatment and recovery, our Deputy CEO, Jess, stepped up and held the reigns for the first half of the year. We’re so happy to say Indy has been back with us since June, and is an inspiration in leading us with energy, enthusiasm and commitment. To support others in her position and raise awareness, she recently wrote about her experience for Third Sector.

Our team has also welcomed new additions, as Teddy, Maisie, and Nina joined Agenda’s staff this year, and five new trustees joined our Board. We’re also partway through recruiting for a new Chair of Trustees, and will announce who has taken up the post in the New Year.

We’re also incredibly proud to have welcomed Daddyless Daughters and the National Women’s Justice Coalition as alliance members this year.

We began 2023 with an extension to our Young Women’s Justice Project, thanks to funding from Lloyds Bank Foundation. We’re proud to have made clear impact with this work, working alongside others to achieve a commitment from the Ministry of Justice to develop a Young Adult Women’s Strategy, and we continue to work towards this being meaningfully co-produced with girls and young women. We ended the year publishing our briefing, A Call to Action, which sets out clear, actionable, recommendations for government, the criminal justice system, and service providers.

Alongside A Call to Action, this year we:

• Published Underexamined and Underreported, our report highlighting that women experiencing intimate partner violence are 3x more likely to have considered suicide. This research was covered across the national press, by the Guardian, inews, and the Independent.
  
• Were successful in securing a Westminster Hall debate regarding Tackling Double Disadvantage, our project to improve outcomes and reduce inequalities and discrimination against Black, Asian, minoritised and migrant women in contact with the criminal justice system.
  
• Published Dismantling Disadvantage, the final report of our Transforming Services for Women’s Futures project. Its findings, and the voices of women we spoke to, were platformed across the national press. We also held a launch at the House of Commons, hosted by Jess Philips, where we heard from the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, a panel of practitioners, and brought the voices of our lived experience researchers directly to government.
  
• Continued our work with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and voluntary sector colleagues working in the local area to understand the experiences of women who have experienced multiple child removal, and the intersections with issues of housing and homelessness, and the specific experiences of Black, Asian, Minoritized and migratised women.
  
• Presented to over 100 Home Office officials about how Agenda Alliance embeds the voices of lived experience in our work.

We couldn't do the work we do without the vital backing from our funders. Thank you to our long-standing funders, whose continued partnership is helping to create meaningful change; and thank you to our new funders for backing our vision, including the John Ellerman Foundation and AB Charitable Trust, who we welcomed this year.

We are grateful to everyone who supports our work, whether that’s through donating, receiving our newsletter, or sharing our updates on social media. You all are a crucial part of our movement, campaigning for change so all women and girls can thrive.

• Continuing and embedding our anti-racism work at all levels of the organization.
• Working with the Ministry of Justice on the Young Women’s Strategy next year, and continuing to engage Police Crime Commissioners on our Young Women’s Justice Project recommendations.
• Building and strengthening the Transforming Together network in the North-East, to deliver real change for women with multiple unmet needs engaging with public services.
• Continuing our work with Greater Manchester Combined Authority, offering them clear recommendations to improve responses and support for women experiencing child removal.
• Publishing our approach to working with women and girls, and why we think co-production is such a vital tool for change.
• Making sure we are successfully communicating the change we are creating – we will be seeking an impact measurement consultant soon, so watch this space.
• Championing the voices of women and girls and fighting for their needs as we approach a General Election!