Lisa Coates-Peers is a Senior Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner at national social care charity Making Space. Here, Lisa explains how creating a sense of belonging in everyday practice can shape whether people engage with support or feel left behind.
In psychological wellbeing and social care, leadership is not defined by job titles or hierarchy. It is defined by impact. For me, leading the way means creating services where people feel they belong. Sometimes the difference between someone engaging with support and quietly withdrawing is whether they feel they belong. It shows up in everyday practice: the language we use, the assumptions we avoid, the flexibility we offer, and whether someone leaves an interaction feeling respected and understood, even when their life does not fit a standard pathway.
My approach to leadership has been shaped strongly by lived experience. I have seen first-hand how easily systems exclude people by expecting them to adapt to services, rather than designing services around real lives. Many people who access psychological and social care are already managing pain, fatigue, cognitive overload, caring responsibilities, stigma or the impact of previous negative experiences. When services assume capacity, people who are already struggling are often the most likely to disengage.
As a practitioner, I work from a place of curiosity, transparency and compassion, and I aim to design processes that assume complexity rather than treating it as an exception. That commitment to belonging extends beyond my clinical work. I have also published a children’s book centred on inclusion and belonging, reflecting my belief that the language we use and the understanding we model early in life can have a lifelong impact.
In my role as Making Space’s LGBTQ+ Champion, I have seen how small, consistent changes can make a significant difference. The biggest impact has come from pairing affirming language with affirming action. This includes routinely asking and recording names and pronouns, removing heteronormative assumptions from templates, supporting staff to respond confidently to disclosures, and embedding inclusion into everyday practice rather than treating it as an add-on.
Campaigning for pronouns in staff email signatures and the use of visible inclusion tools has helped signal safety and belonging from the outset. When inclusion is consistent and visible, people no longer have to assess whether it is safe to be themselves.
Accessibility has also been central to my work, particularly for neurodivergent people and those living with long-term health conditions. Traditional service models often rely on people processing large amounts of information, retaining details between sessions and engaging in specific ways. To reduce pressure, I developed two practical tools. The first, Today I Need Space (TINS), offers a structured way for people to communicate what feels manageable in the moment without having to explain everything verbally. The second is a long-term health conditions screening tool that captures how symptoms such as pain, fatigue and cognitive difficulties affect engagement, pacing and memory. Together, these tools help practitioners understand the person more quickly and agree reasonable adjustments early.
Personalisation only becomes meaningful when it changes decisions. Shared formulation, meaningful choice around goals and pace, and outcomes that matter to the individual are essential. An intersectional lens is vital, because people experience services differently depending on the combined impact of identity, socioeconomic position, caring responsibilities and previous experiences of services. Equity requires us to notice these differences and adapt accordingly.
Challenges remain. Time pressure, digital exclusion and rigid pathways can unintentionally advantage those who find services easiest to access while creating barriers for others. Workforce wellbeing and inclusion are inseparable from safe, compassionate care; services rely on supported, supervised and psychologically safe staff to learn, reflect and improve practice.
What gives me hope is seeing how practice can shift when services listen, act on feedback and design with lived experience rather than around it. Influence spreads when ways of working improve outcomes and feel more human. We are working with people, not processes. When we centre belonging, we move closer to care that truly puts people first.
