Changes

Our team

changes was established in 2005 – we had a little lull as all the investment in community development nose-dived for a while but we have not gone away entirely!

Sal Hampson

Sal is currently undertaking two project evaluations and developing a planning & evaluation framework for a programme of wellbeing activities. Sal was Project Manager at The Hive – a local charity supporting vulnerable young people through arts and music: bringing in approx £750K of grant funding 2019-2021 and supporting the development of an evaluation framework which captures the impact of empowering approaches and creative intervention. Since then, Sal led on the budgets for Safe Ageing No Discrimination CIC, for a ground-breaking project to EMBRACE A Culture of inclusion.

Sal cut her community development teeth in the north of England, establishing the National Training & Consultancy Programme for the Community Development Foundation. She was central to the dissemination of the Achieving Better Community Development Planning & Evaluation Framework which changes later used to inspire the development of DiCE – arguably a more user-friendly alternative. Sal often finds herself in a project or budget management role with a spreadsheet not too far away and has most recently been part of the team delivering on a project encouraging and supporting organisations to EMBRACE A Culture of Inclusion across Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin the SAND.

Sal has a first class honours degree in Community Studies and a Masters with distinction in Criminal Justice Studies. She was also a Trustee of AgeUK STW for 12 years from 2009 and is now an Ambassador for the charity.

Jill Bedford

Jill has over 40 years’ experience of working within the voluntary, public and private sectors. Her background includes education, training and consultancy in the fields of health and community development, social\community research and evaluation, women’s leadership, community education, community economic development and voluntary sector development work. She was recently co-president of the European YWCA for 6 years and is now part of the Nominations Committee, with a role to develop leadership skills for younger women in the movement. She was a Board member for FRESh (Fairness, Respect Equality Shropshire) for 4 years and a public governor for her local mental health foundation trust. She has worked as an Open University tutor since 1988 in the fields of social science, health and social care. Jill is currently working with The Hive, Shrewsbury as an evaluator for Amplify – a project for young people to nurture talent and provide opportunities within the music industry.

Jill has a B.A. Hons in Geography, a B.A. Hons in Psychology and an M.A. in Education. She has just applied for Fellow status with Advance HE and will be studying a postgraduate module in 2025 on technology enhanced learning.

 

Sue Gorbing

Over the past 35 years Sue has worked in the community, voluntary and public sectors, broadly in the fields of community development, community influence, community engagement, equalities and ‘active citizenship’; delivering training, research, evaluation and organisational development. Sue’s voluntary involvement has been in both local and national groups and organisations. She is currently a Vice Chair of West Mercia Women’s Aid and chairs the health and safety subgroup and was a Board member for FRESh (Fairness, Respect Equality Shropshire) for 4 years. She is currently Chair of SAND (Safe Ageing No Discrimination) a Shropshire based Community Interest Company, looking at the needs and experiences of older LGBT people in relation to health and social care. As well as working to involve the health and social care sector in looking at these issues.

Sue has a B.A. Hons in Social Sciences, an M.Soc.Sci. in Local Government Studies and an M.Jur. in Socio Legal Research.

 

Jill and Sue have been working together since 1996 (known as Working for Change), during which time they pioneered a number of accredited training courses, including ‘Women working in communities’ and  ‘Impact: Women active in community and public life’, funded by the Civil Renewal Unit as part of the Active Learning for Active Citizenship national initiative. They have undertaken training and consultancy contracts in the fields of community development, criminal justice, training the trainers and group skills, health, community education, social enterprise development, social/community research and evaluation, and voluntary sector development work. They have also written: Community Research: Getting Started for ARVAC (Association for Research in the Voluntary and Community sectors) ; a postgraduate distance learning module around Leadership in the NHS for the Open University Business School; an online distance learning course for managers of Social Firms.

changes, the Company was dissolved in 2018 and the founders now operate as sole traders, reuniting for some appropriate pieces of work.