“I am fascinated by the metaphor of the patchwork quilt: what are we co-creating, what are we stitching together, repairing, making do with or creating entirely anew. 

“The most encompassing definition I have heard for the work we are doing came from this network. It is the practice of ‘walking alongside’ people. There’s a French word for it: ‘accompagnement’.”

“We need to build better systems across a variety of services, business structures and the environment by really hearing all the voices.

“When it comes to systemic change, it’s helpful to be present with the difficulty, to understand what are the difficulties and what can we learn from that? Naturally, if there are systems that you don’t like, you don’t engage with them, so therefore by definition you won’t be able to change them. So if we find ourselves not liking stuff then that should tell us where we need to engage. 

“In terms of how to build a better system, the clean-language question is: what would you like to happen? 

“How do you unpick where you are now, so that when you do come to ask ‘where next’ you imagine a different future, involving as many people in that process as possible? That’s what we are doing on these calls: asking ‘where next’ at a systemic level with voices embedded in communities all over the country.”

Bindie Wood is an activist, specialist therapist and NHS worker based in London.