Research & Participation
Research & Participation at Hospitality & Hope exists to make sure everything we do is grounded in real local experience, high‑quality evidence, and genuine partnership with the people of South Tyneside.
Our dedicated team helps the charity understand what is really happening in our community and how our services can respond. We bring together data, stories and lived experience from people using our foodbank, community shops, supported housing and wellbeing programmes, so that decisions are based on insight, not assumption.
This work underpins our commitment to evidence‑based practice and ensures that our services reduce food insecurity, improve wellbeing and tackle homelessness as effectively as possible. Check out our In Our Words brochure and hear stories from our Community Shop members.
We support the whole organisation to ask good questions, test new ideas and learn from what works. That might mean evaluating a new wellbeing activity, tracking the impact of changes in our community shops, or analysing trends in referrals to the foodbank over time. By sharing clear findings with staff, volunteers and trustees, we help shape strategic decisions and day‑to‑day practice so that Hospitality & Hope continues to respond to need in a fast‑changing environment.
Why Research Matters
Hospitality & Hope works in one of the most deprived areas in England, where people are facing rising costs, insecure work and complex personal challenges. In this context, the margin for error is small: if we get services wrong, people may go without food, lose their home, or miss out on vital support. High‑quality research helps us target our limited resources where they make the biggest difference, and gives us confidence that we are meeting the most urgent needs.
Our research also strengthens our ability to influence others. When we sit at local and regional tables, we bring more than opinion: we bring data, insight and the voices of people who use our services. This evidence helps us advocate for better policies on food insecurity, housing, welfare, and mental health, in line with our aim to reduce food poverty, improve wellbeing, and reduce homelessness across South Tyneside.
Participation & Lived Experience
Participation is at the heart of how we work. We believe that people with lived experience of poverty, homelessness and poor health are experts in their own lives, and their insight should shape both our services and our campaigning. The Research & Participation team creates safe, respectful ways for people to share their experiences: through interviews, surveys, focus groups, creative workshops and ongoing feedback conversations.
This is why groups such as Voices of H&H are so important to us.
We are careful that participation is never tokenistic. We close the loop by feeding back what we have heard, explaining what will change as a result, and where there are constraints we cannot control. Over time, this builds trust and helps people feel that Hospitality & Hope is something they are part of, rather than something that is simply done to them. An example of this might be using feedback from community shop members to adjust opening times or product ranges, and then showing clearly how their input led to that change.
How We Work
We collect and analyse information on who is using each service, why they come to us, and what outcomes they achieve over time, while always respecting confidentiality and data protection. This might include monitoring the proportion of crisis food parcels going to families, people in work, or those affected by specific issues such as benefit delays or health problems.
We also collaborate closely with partners across South Tyneside and beyond, having worked with Trussell since 2020 and having had a strong working relationship with South Tyneside Council since our inception.
By sharing anonymised data and insight with local authorities, housing providers, health services and other charities, we help build a fuller picture of need in the borough. This joint understanding supports more coordinated responses, from emergency accommodation to longer‑term wellbeing support, and strengthens funding bids that can bring additional resources into the area.
Community Researcher & Participation Officer Pippa Betterton
Within this department, Research Officer Pippa plays a central role in turning information into insight and insight into action. Drawing on training and experience in research and evaluation as well as youth, play and childcare, Pippa coordinates the design of studies, the collection of data and the analysis that sits behind our key decisions with three decades of experience.
On a typical day, Pippa might be reviewing case data from supported housing, preparing a survey for community shop members, or interviewing someone with lived experience about how our services have helped and what could be improved. Equally she might be working to support our partners at STOC in promoting food sustainability across the region.
Pippa also supports colleagues across the organisation to develop their own research confidence. This includes advising on how to frame evaluation questions, designing simple tools for frontline staff to capture outcomes, and providing clear written reports that translate complex findings into accessible language. Importantly, Pippa champions participation at every stage, ensuring that people using our services are involved not only as respondents but as co‑creators where possible – shaping the questions we ask, helping interpret the findings, and, in some cases, representing their communities in external forums. The video below, filmed in September 2023, is just one example – an event to promote Trussell’s Guarantee Our Essentials Campaign outside South Tyneside Council’s Town Hall.
Through this combination of rigorous research and meaningful participation, the Research & Participation team – and Pippa’s work within it – helps Hospitality & Hope stay grounded, accountable and forward‑looking, so that our vision of a community living with an increased sense of hope for a positive and self‑reliant future can become a reality.
