Community Programme 2022-2025

Co-Designed Human Rights Solutions

Following the success of our pilot programme in 2021 and 2022, BIHR received funding from the Baring Foundation to co-develop human rights support solutions with UK community groups to help them integrate HRA advocacy into their ongoing work to tackle specific issues affecting them and the people they support. This work is part of our UK-wide Communities Programme 2022-2025.

Co-production is at the heart of this offer. It sees community groups working with BIHR more intensively to support longer-term social change using a human rights-based approach, before eventually launching the co-designed advocacy tools on Human Rights Day each year.

Go back to the main page for our UK Communities Programme 2022-2025 Read about our community pilot programme 2020-2022

How we made the solutions

This part of our UK Community Programme 2022-2025 involves:

Programmatic partnerships with CVGs to identify key concerns which can be mapped to the HRA rights and duties; and
Co-developing tailored support solutions to integrate HRA advocacy into their work tackling issues affecting their communities.

Co-production is at the core of this project. Our approach to co-design used a four-stage process to ensure that the views and opinions of our partners and the eventual end “users” of the solution were central to the development.

Stage 1: Discover

We host a workshop with community, campaigning and advocacy organisations across the UK who are interested in working with BIHR longer-term to support their human rights advocacy.

Following the workshop, we open applications and then use criteria to score each application and choose the top-scoring organisations to partner with. We have heard from so many fantastic organisations who wanted to work with us on this project.

Stage 2: Define

Selected partners are then invited to a "Define" workshop to further define their ideas for human rights support "solutions". Each organisation then works with a staff member to co-develop plans about what the "solution" will be and how we will work together.

Stage 3: Develop

We then work with the partner organisations to map, develop and test their human rights "solutions", ensuring that this will effectively support them with the issue they are facing.

Stage 4: Deliver

The final step is to publish and share the finished tools! Previously this has taken place on Human Rights Day at an event in the House of Lords.

Our community partners

From 2022-2025, BIHR has partnered with 14 different community and voluntary groups from across the UK. We were able to conclude our work with the four pilot organisations, as well as beginning new and exciting co-design projects with ten new groups. This has enabled the development of a wide variety of human rights based advocacy-tools, developed by and for community groups to be as relevant, practical and impactful as possible.

Scroll through the carousel below to find out more about our partner organisations and what we made. You can access digital versions of all 14 human rights support solutions for free by clicking on the partner pages.

Hopscotch Women's Centre

Find out about our work with Hopscotch Women's Centre to create a guide to human rights advocacy for staff.

Hopscotch Women's Centre

Find out about our work with Hopscotch Women's Centre to create a guide to human rights advocacy for staff.

Warrington Speak Up

Find out about our work with Warrington Speak Up to co-design Easy Read human rights postcards.

Warrington Speak Up

Find out about our work with Warrington Speak Up to co-design Easy Read human rights postcards.

Room to Heal

Find out about our work with Room to Heal to create guides for staff and individuals seeking asylum in multiple languages.

Room to Heal

Find out about our work with Room to Heal to create guides for staff and individuals seeking asylum in multiple languages.

Together (Scottish Alliance for Children's Rights)

Find out about our work with Together (Scottish Alliance for Children's Rights) to create tools for completing Child Rights Impact Assessments.

Together (Scottish Alliance for Children's Rights)

Find out about our work with Together (Scottish Alliance for Children's Rights) to create tools for completing Child Rights Impact Assessments.

All Wales People First

Find out about our work with All Wales People First to create an accessible guide to help people with learning disabilities have a say over their care and treatment.

All Wales People First

Find out about our work with All Wales People First to create an accessible guide to help people with learning disabilities have a say over their care and treatment.

Migrants' Rights Network

Find out about our work with Migrants' Rights Network to create a human rights guide for people living in asylum accommodation in the UK.

Migrants' Rights Network

Find out about our work with Migrants' Rights Network to create a human rights guide for people living in asylum accommodation in the UK.

ATD Fourth World UK

Find out about our work with ATD Fourth World UK to create a resource to help young people to understand their human rights, including letter templates.

ATD Fourth World UK

Find out about our work with ATD Fourth World UK to create a resource to help young people to understand their human rights, including letter templates.

My Life My Choice

Find out about our work with My Life My Choice to create an accessible guide to support the human rights of people with a learning disability who have been placed in long-stay hospitals.

My Life My Choice

Find out about our work with My Life My Choice to create an accessible guide to support the human rights of people with a learning disability who have been placed in long-stay hospitals.

Families in Trauma and Recovery

Find out about our work with Families in Trauma and Recovery to create human rights guide to help families from all backgrounds to secure their rights when getting support and care following trauma.

Families in Trauma and Recovery

Find out about our work with Families in Trauma and Recovery to create human rights guide to help families from all backgrounds to secure their rights when getting support and care following trauma.

Fair Justice System for Scotland

Find out about our work with Fair Justice System for Scotland Group to create a human rights guide for people using their services, which largely represents the Black African Community in West Calder, Lothian.

Fair Justice System for Scotland

Parent & Carer Alliance CIC

Find out about our work with Parent and Carer Alliance CIC to create a detailed written resource and video to empower parents and carers of children with special educational needs and disabilities to use human rights when challenging decisions of local authorities and schools.

Parent & Carer Alliance CIC

Cwm Taf People First

Find out more about our work with Cwm Taf People First to create a human rights card game for people with learning disabilities.

Cwm Taf People First

Find out more about our work with Cwm Taf People First to create a human rights card game for people with learning disabilities.

Bomoko NI

Find out about our work with Bomoko NI to create a folded pocket guide about human rights and housing for refugee and asylum seeker families.

Bomoko NI

Find out about our work with Bomoko NI to create a folded pocket guide about human rights and housing for refugee and asylum seeker families.

African Women Empowerment Forum

Find out about our work with the African Women Empowerment Forum to create a booklet that can be used by women migrants and asylum seekers in the UK to learn more about their human rights and how they relate to their experiences with public services.

African Women Empowerment Forum

The impact of these solutions

See below our impact reports from three years of co-developing human rights support solutions with diverse communities across the UK:

Room To Heal Impact Report Warrington Speak Up Impact Report Hopscotch Impact Report Read the impact report for the 2023 co-design programme Read the impact report for the 2024 co-design programme

Co-design partner, 2023

“I believe you have the right balance with allowing the community organisations to lead in the areas they know best, but also merging this with "official" language and knowledge from your own perspective worked really well.”

Bomoko NI, 2024

“This initiative has been invaluable in empowering our members with essential knowledge and support in navigating their rights and housing challenges. Feedback from our members has been overwhelmingly positive, with participants expressing appreciation for the program’s relevance and impact. Many found the program insightful and empowering, highlighting the importance of continued efforts in this area.”

Cwm Taf People First, 2024

“Our work on this project has opened up other avenues for us to explore, and in light of this no ask was too big (or strange) for the BIHR team. They really held our members interests at heart and worked with us to make sure that they were included in the process and that their voice was at the centre of our Game. This has allowed our members to see themselves within the final resource, generating a sense of pride; motivation to want to do more; and eagerness to share our work.”

Co-design partner, 2023

“I hoped we would have an equal role in co-designing the programme and this definitely happened. All of our expectations were met.”

Our partners

Everyone at BIHR would like to say a massive thank you to our funders, the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, the Tudor Trust, the Bromley Trust, Comic Relief (Covid fund), the Three Guineas Trust, and the Baring Foundation, without whom this important work would not have been possible.

And thank you to our partner organisations for sharing your time, ideas and experiences with us, all of which helped bring these human rights workshops to life.

The future of this work

Our UK Communities Programme 2022-2025 has now come to an end.

BIHR is committed to continuing to support people and their communities to know about their human rights and have the confidence to talk about and advocate for their rights in everyday situations where they interact with public bodies. We are exploring how we can continue to provide this support free of charge to UK community groups.

BIHR is a leading provider of human rights training and support to individuals, community groups, and public bodies. Click the link below to download our training brochure and find out how to enquire with us.