• This will be a supportive, peer-led space for those working on the frontline to share good practice, support new ways of working (such as the Team Around Me Approach) and discuss system barriers. The learning from this group will be fed into the wider MEAM work to influence systems change.

• Note: this will be launching in autumn 2026.

To join the MEAM Mighty Networks online platform (choose the MEAM Approach Network & Changing Futures Member option and Gloucestershire as your network area. 

Those adopting the MEAM Approach form a network of fifty local areas, that are increasing individuals’ wellbeing, reducing costs to public services and improving people’s lives.

It is a coalition of charities, formed in 2009, that works across sectors and across government to improve responses and change lives.

Since January 2025, MEAM has operated as a charity with partners Clinks, Collective Voice, Homeless Link and Mind on the MEAM board.

The way these challenges intersect often results in combined experiences of homelessness, substance use, mental ill health, domestic abuse and involvement with the criminal justice system.

·       Mental or physical health problems

·       Trauma

·       Homelessness

·       Addiction

·       Domestic abuse

·       Problems with the criminal justice system

·       Poverty or discrimination

These problems are not the person’s fault. Often, the 'system' is the problem as many services work separately and have strict rules on when they can provide support.

MEAM Gloucestershire wants to change this.  We are working to encourage services to work together, be flexible and focus on the person as a whole.

MEAM Gloucestershire is not a new service or a referral route. It is a network of organisations, teams and people who want to:

·       Work together

·       Learn from each other

·       Improve how services are able to support adults experiencing several difficult problems at the same time

• This will build on existing lived and living experience already influencing the system locally, to embed co-production within MEAM Gloucestershire. 

• This group will be a space for people with first‑hand experience to provide the MEAM approach in Gloucestershire with advice and expertise to ensure the work is shaped by real lives, not assumptions.