From Implicit to Intentional: Advancing equity in Human Learning Systems

04 June 2025

Gabriel Eichsteller learning facilitator @ ThemPra

By Onika Winston, Malavika Murali, Naomi Diamond (Collaborate CIC) & Gabriel Eichsteller (ThemPra Social Pedagogy CIC)

‘When I first started, I didn’t get a warm welcome. It was almost like, “They’ve got some funding, they want to engage, they have funding criteria, we’ve seen people come and go, and she’s going to do the same.” There is truth in that, because that’s what people do. They don’t tend to look at the community and work bottom up; it’s always top down: “Oh, this community needs this.”’

Bharti Mistry, one of the community connectors with Reaching People in Leicester, can tell many brilliant stories about what it means to build relationships. There’s one about supporting a group of local women in setting up exercise classes, which started with 30 people and quickly grew into a community-led offer that’s affordable, self-sustaining and as a result is still going. There’s another anecdote about initiating a local knit and natter group that doesn’t just bring people together to knit but has seen people knit blankets for homeless people in the local area and for Ukrainian refugees, this feeling that they are making an active contribution to society. Many of these stories are small in scale, like the one about rearranging the space so that people in wheelchairs felt actively included in a cultural festival. ‘One lady in a wheelchair said she hadn’t had so much fun in years, and felt like she was really dancing.’ And yet, the ripples created by Bharti’s work are far bigger, because they enable people at the margins of society to feel genuinely involved and make a difference: ‘That woman grew from participant to session lead for singing, then started leading at the neighborhood center, and became a dementia community champion.’

All of Bharti’s stories speak to the immense value created when taking the time to focus on relationships - showing up consistently and gradually building trust - to be curious and learn with people, and to create a more connected local system by bringing people and organisations together. This recognition that, by building from the margins inwards, we can advance equity and inclusion in ways that benefit everyone, is woven throughout her work and is reflective of many more examples of Human Learning Systems practice that have informed the latest HLS Insights.

In this blog, we share insights into how Human Learning Systems can help advance equity, highlighting why this must underpin the inherent purpose of relational public services. We would like to thank the HLS practitioners who generously shared their time, experiences and insights from their work with communities. Their contributions were essential in shaping the findings we share here.

How we researched these insights

To better understand the extent to which equity might underpin Human Learning Systems, we went through all Examples of HLS Practice and identified those in which addressing inequity was presented as a key ambition. We recognise that this does not necessarily mean an absence of such concerns in any other HLS examples. Following this analysis and sense-making, we interviewed people from five of the Examples of Practice who seemed to offer fascinating insights into advancing equity for various disadvantaged groups through an HLS approach. These were:

Brent Care Journeys, a strategic alliance between Barnardo’s and Brent Council driven by a determination to address unacceptably entrenched and simultaneously unprecedented challenges faced by care experienced young people in the London borough.
Gateshead Community Bridgebuilders, an initiative experimenting with participative community decision-making to build the power of local communities that are marginalised by existing governance systems.
Hackney Council’s collaboration with Sport England to develop a whole system approach to tackling physical activity inequalities in the London borough.
The Opportunities Fife Partnership’s work on No One Left Behind, which co-designed their employability commissioning strategy together with people who had first-hand experience of using employment support services in the Scottish county.
Reaching People, a social prescribing project aimed at reducing the social isolation and marginalisation of older people in two areas of Leicester.

In reviewing the examples of HLS practice, several key insights emerged. These are not fixed solutions or step-by-step instructions, and instead, ingredients practitioners can adapt, reshape and integrate into their own contexts to advance equity more intentionally. To share these insights with you, we’ve edited these interviews into a podcast series. Changing the Narrative explores how Human Learning Systems can enable greater equity in public services. You can listen to all episodes here.

Leading with purpose: Equity as the starting point

One core message across all interviews we undertook was this: While the relational practices central to HLS are well-positioned to promote equity, they do not automatically enable equitable outcomes. Without explicitly naming and addressing equity, even the most well-intentioned relational work can reproduce existing power imbalances. Equity needs to be an interconnected, embedded consideration throughout. Ensuring equity requires deliberate, intentional practice around a clear purpose, promoting social justice.

Relational practices can only advance equity where they are accompanied by conscious, critical reflections on power, inclusion and agency at all system levels (interpersonal, organisational-structural, local, regional and national). Without acknowledging and addressing structural barriers, implicit biases and trust deficits, particularly in marginalised communities, public services risk ignoring or reinforcing existing inequalities.

Meaningful equity-centred work requires the following enabling conditions:

Seeing equity as collective gain: Equity isn’t just about addressing disparities for some, it’s about creating a system where everyone benefits from fairness, inclusion and shared power. This connects to the moral purpose of HLS to support human freedom and flourishing and explicitly requires us to create an environment in which those who are marginalised or disadvantaged can enjoy these benefits too. An environment in which everyone can flourish is better for all. The place-based HLS Examples of Practice by Gateshead Community Bridgebuilders, Hackney and Reaching People demonstrate some of the small shifts that can make this possible and lead to a genuine sense of empowerment.
Challenging anti-equity narratives: It is important to name and challenge the narratives that undermine equity (meritocracy myths that deny structural barriers, deficit framings that blame marginalised communities, political and cultural discourses that resist redistribution or shared power). Building shared political education across teams, organisations and communities is critical to counteracting these narratives. We need to explicitly make the case that groups who have been disadvantaged have much to offer that benefits everybody. The HLS practices showed examples of older people’s ongoing contribution to their communities when prejudices about old age were addressed; of care experienced young people becoming a movement for change in the care system; of ethnically diverse communities creating new inclusive initiatives to address some of the most entrenched challenges; and of people with lived experience of being unemployed improving employment support. These examples demonstrate that equity is not a zero-sum game and that we need to change the narrative.
Understanding historical context: Without this grounding, there is a risk of overlooking the deep-rooted factors that shape present-day dynamics. Equitable working requires confronting the historical roots of structural inequity. How have colonial legacies and historical narratives around specific social groups shaped today’s public services? How do these past injustices continue to influence whose voices are heard or excluded? And how do these historical patterns of marginalisation or harm show up in the present system? The HLS examples we feature here all showed deep awareness of this, recognising that the historical relationships required a lot of work on building relationships and re-building trust.

"Political education is needed, and pushing against the weaponization of equity [...] It requires sitting and reasoning together to unpack why people think what they think – that’s how you build solidarity." (Dayo Eseonu)

Recognising positionality: Acknowledging this isn’t just a personal exercise, it’s an important precondition for collective system understanding. Everyone comes to the work with their own positionality, shaped by race, gender, class, ability, institutional roles and lived experiences. It’s important to reflect on where you sit in relation to power and consider how your positionality affects how you see the system (and how the system sees you). Even the mere act of naming this seemed to send an important message in the HLS practice examples, showing recognition to others and an eagerness to learn about diverse perspectives and experiences. In some cases, such as Gateshead Community Bridgebuilders, this led to fascinating explorations around power, highlighting the importance of equal recognition as a way to ensure everyone feels meaningfully involved.
Intentional pursuit of equity: Equity must be intentional at multiple levels - from interpersonal relationships to organisational cultures to policy frameworks. Without an explicit commitment or deliberate design and practices, there is a risk that systems will default to reproducing the status quo. A determination to address structural disadvantages and pursue equity was central to the purpose of the HLS practice examples presented here, whether that was to tackle health inequalities (Hackney), ensure that no one is left behind (Opportunities Fife Partnership), or to change the care system (Brent Care Journeys).
Commitment to ongoing work: Embedding equity is not a one-off project or a checklist to complete, it’s a continuous, evolving commitment. It is vital to consider how to sustain this work across leadership changes, funding cycles or shifting political climates, as well as building structures of accountability to ensure equity remains at the centre. Without this commitment, it can easily become extractive and further undermine trust. The HLS examples show it’s possible to create sustainability and that communities will have great ideas of how this could evolve, e.g. the young people who were part of Brent Care Journeys created their own movement.

Equity in Action

Below are a few suggestions for how you can develop these enabling conditions in your practice - with intention, adaptability and care.

Start with reflection, not action

Before getting started on your work, pause to reflect on how you can best surface equity aspects relevant to your current context? Whose perspectives and lived experiences might not be seen and heard? Where might your team or organisation be overlooking power, inclusion or structural barriers?

"It is easy for all concerned to get sucked into the action trap, particularly when under pressure to meet numerical targets." (Reaching People)

"Some people have very action-oriented ways of working and view time for reflection, learning and to build relationships as a luxury. [...] And if we remain focused in this very action-oriented way - like delivery, delivery, delivery - it actually doesn't allow us to stop and really be thinking about: Well, how well is this working? And crucially in relation to equity, who is this working for?" (Hackney)

"Start messy. If the structure allows, make space to bring diverse perspectives together in your first 'how are we going to do this' conversation. If you host it in a way that’s messy and vulnerable, good things can happen – but they take time." (No One Left Behind)

Give it time

Systems change is complex and non-linear, so you won’t necessarily see results quickly. Take time for relationship-building, trust development and iterative adaptation. When you’re not being extractive but committed to co-production principles that centre minority perspectives that often get left out of decision-making processes, things will take longer but be much more rigorous and meaningful. That doesn’t mean not doing anything, because often your actions can help build trust. Finding simple, human solutions that show sincerity and an eagerness to address system barriers is critical.

“It took a few years before some of the main actors and our key collaborators - our young people who had lived experience - began to truly believe that we were going to do things, and we were going to change” (Brent Care Journeys)

"Trusting relationships don’t happen overnight. We had to keep showing up, having difficult conversations, and being willing to adapt. It’s about investing in relationships even when there’s nothing immediate to show for it." (Hackney)

“As people got to know me, trust me, the doors started opening.” (Reaching People)

“The gift of time was important. There wasn’t a requirement to have a fully worked-out plan in three months – it was: explore, build relationships, trust the process.” (Gateshead Community Bridgebuilders)

Contextualise, don’t copy

Remember that what works in one context may not work in another, so make sure you consider the local conditions, histories, relationships and dynamics. You can, of course, take inspiration from elsewhere and figure out together with everyone involved what an intentional focus on equity could look like here, with the people in this community, at this moment.

“One of the starting points is that we had a really strong commitment to building a picture of insight, to help inform the work that we would then go on to do. [...] So there were lots of statistics about the prevalence of particular health conditions, or about people's economic situation and poverty. [...] But actually, it's only by really being willing to get into further detail and to connect at a very granular community level, where you begin to build up a better picture.” (Hackney)

“We realised solutions must be rooted in each community’s unique history and cultural dynamics.” (Reaching People)

“Local plans must be informed by local people’s experiences. National policies often fail because they’re not grounded in what communities actually need.” (No One Left Behind)

Create enabling conditions

Don’t just focus on doing new things but on creating the conditions that allow equitable practices to become embedded. Think about how funding priorities, governance processes or accountability mechanisms can be adjusted to support long-term equity shifts.

“We invited people to apply in their own language. We also invited people to apply through spoken form rather than written form if they wanted. Nobody took us up on those offers - everyone applied in writing and in English - but a number of people said that just putting the offer out there showed people we were thinking about them and doing things differently. That removed some of those barriers.” (Gateshead Community Bridgebuilders)

“Ground rules like ‘everyone speaks once before speaking twice’ stopped dominant voices overshadowing others.” (No One Left Behind)

“I was fortunate to have senior leadership that allowed us to bring our youth collaborators into those board meetings. So we were integrated when we were presenting, and we were looking for accountability and governance. We were all there. We were all presenting work as equals. [...] But I also wanted to question what room are we in? How does that make these young people feel? Some people feel more comfortable in this room than other people. How's everybody dressed? Some people look quite formal. That asserts something about their power and authority. And it's quite disempowering actually, to somebody who dresses another way. So let's ask questions around this. What time of day are we meeting? Oh, we're probably meeting between 9 and 5, because this is really convenient for these professionals who are going to squeeze it into their busy diaries. That's actually really difficult if you're a single parent, or if you're trying to go to college, or you've got a job. So we were having to say: ‘Well, are we doing this in the evening? Are we doing this in a boardroom, or are we doing this in a more informal area?’ Sometimes, I was saying: ‘Let's do this in Nando's. Let's do this where the people who are most disempowered in this structure feel the most comfortable. Let's upend how this whole relationship is weighted.’”(Brent Care Journeys)

Hold space for learning and unlearning

Equity-centred work requires continuous learning and unlearning. That means resisting existing patterns of behaviour and questioning existing structures and processes. It’s important that you look for what you can learn in these situations, so approach mistakes with humility and curiosity, not defensiveness.

“The learning part shows up in the way we do things, and that everyone in the room is enabled to do things-there's no strategy you have to fit into, it's about experimenting. With Zahra and the other Bridgebuilders, they've tried things, seen what works, and if things don't work, that's fine. Even if things do work, they may have a time limit and need to evolve.” (Gateshead Community Bridgebuilders)

“I feel that the really important thing about the learning elements of this work is the fact that when you do do that reflection and you do that deep reflection with others, that it does really help to highlight where things need to change.” (Hackney)

“There's a lot of work that needs to happen beforehand, but also when we're bringing people together, you might spend at least half of the session creating the conditions where people feel safe, respected, able to come as their whole self - professionals feel able to let down some of their barriers. There's vulnerability there, too, when we talk about equity.” (No One Left Behind)

Centre collective gain

Keep sight of the bigger picture: prioritising better outcomes for those most marginalised within society creates systems that work better for everyone. Frame equity as a collective good, not a zero-sum game. Equity practices can harness the resourcefulness and strengths of people who currently feel their contributions aren’t valued, but whose active involvement can improve everybody’s circumstances.

"It seems to me that particular politicians have weaponized the fight for equity as a zero sum game, that if somebody benefits, then I lose some of my privilege. And then, people are like: ‘Well, I don't have any privilege, because I'm working class’. An equity focus is not divisive in itself. If we can ensure that those who were worst affected are included in the process, that benefits everybody. If we have an equity lens, it's not a lose-lose situation. We all win, we all get the benefit of better designed services.” (Dayo Eseonu)

“By being in that space, in our experience, people can feel empowered to understand what the existing challenges are, but also to see. if it's done well, how their experiences are going to benefit other people or benefit changes to the system. That grows their confidence in their voice as well.” (No One Left Behind)

“If you get those three perspectives (lived experience, direct practice, strategic leadership) in the room, there's an uplifting of the whole, which I think is really beneficial.” (No One Left Behind)

Listen to the podcast

Changing the Narrative is our six-episode podcast series featuring people involved in the examples of HLS practice, who offer further nuance, inspiration and practical ideas for how you can advance equity within your context.

To start things off, in the first episode we’re talking with Dr Dayo Eseonu from Lancaster University about what equity means, why we need to tell a different story about equity and how intentional Human Learning Systems practice can advance it.

In our second episode, we’re talking with Andy Crosbie and Zahra Bazarganianpour from Gateshead Community Bridgebuilders about leveraging community power.

For our third episode, we’re speaking with Pegs Bailey from Opportunities Fife Partnership in Scotland about their co-production work on employability.

Our fourth episode features Anna Willow describing Brent Care Journeys, a collaboration between Barnardo’s and Brent Council to infuse the care system with relationships.

Episode five’s interview guest is Lola Akindoyin from Hackney Council’s work with Sport England on tackling health inequalities.

Our final episode takes us to Leicester, with a conversation with Bharti Mistry and Rob Hunter on their social prescribing project, Reaching People.

Click here to listen.

You can also read their examples of HLS practice here:

For more details on Human Learning Systems, please read Human Learning Systems: Radical Pragmatism.

Need support?

If you’d like to talk through how you can advance equity in your work, then please get in touch with us.

Tags: Complexity , Human Learning Systems , Agency , Culture , Leadership , Values , Purpose , Change , Psychological Safety , Responsibility , Collaboration , Decision Making , Systems Thinking , Public Services , Rehumanising Work , Empathy , Freedom , Learning , Beliefs , Trust , Inclusion , Diversity , Community

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