Big news about Barclay's Bank 'glitch' meaning customers are unable to access their money and are being advised to use to foodbanks.



I am customer of Barclay's. I have food to last another 2 days. I will be opening a new bank account at the Bank Of Scotland and closing the Barclay's account once I transferred the balance across.

A successful Child Poverty strategy is one where many families across the country have been able to take part in either discussion forums or community outreaches.



They are voices that help shape a better future for our children, therefore the opinions of parents at all different stages of their children’s lives need to be heard.



Cutting funds from school holiday clubs - which the government is doing now - is not going to help reassure parents that their children are put first on any poverty fighting plan, as has happened in my local council.

I love the diversity of the participants in Changing Realities. This allows us to understand other people from all walks of life a lot better too.

I think, throughout the research project, fairness and a safe space have been very consistent, and the opportunity to participate in different campaigns and events has built my confidence.



The research staff have also created different avenues for us to express our creativity through journaling, zine making, and podcasts.

The key message I'd share with others wanting to work this way is that it can seem a very complex mechanism at times, although there is always tremendous growth and learnings. Also, even though for me personally it can be frustrating and hard work at times, the upside is that it's highly rewarding in many ways, especially when we receive lovely praise.

For instance, on the one hand, there needs to be an enormous amount of cohesion between the participants and researchers. On the other hand, everyone is an individual with different needs, influences, experiences, and reasons for being here. However, ultimately, this can provide powerful emotional content, which is very helpful for getting our message across.

As well as relying heavily on the fact that people from all walks of life can get along together, it cannot operate without a great deal of flexibility or give and take between the team and participants.

For me, transparency and respect are top priorities when working together. In my opinion, respect comes from being listened to with the intention of understanding the other person's point of view. Which is what I find so engaging about listening to other participants' stories. For this reason, researchers need excellent listening skills. In Steven Coveys’ ‘7 Habits Book’, he says "Seek first to understand. Then be understood". As most of our communication is represented by our body language and not as much by the words we speak, and as a mainly online community, we don't get to meet up in person on a regular enough basis for my liking. But I can live with this.

In my experience, some of the positives from working in this way are that it delivers a sense of belonging and satisfies my desire to give back and help towards a greater good. It also offers me improved self-esteem, providing me with 'a voice' through the media of a platform where I can be heard in a rational and powerful manor. Ordinarily, I would struggle to access such an audience.

Personally, I sometimes wonder whether there's an occasional push for a particular narrative, to be told, rather than the one in which the writer wants to share. This can and does lead to a clash of understandings, and perspectives between people however for me personally, I'm comfortable enough to put aside any bias and see it all as an opportunity for self-development. I'm not certain whether other people feel the same way as I do.

Finally, for me, 'trust' is another important feature of how we work, and nobody would really know what is going on behind the scenes in any given scenario. However, I trust those I work alongside and hope they feel they have trust in me.

Politics... All the abuse from my business owning conservative-voting ex that I ran away from is never going away...

Constant daily reported of business owners and corrupt politicians raking in profits and blaming the vulnerable. Will I ever be free to relax and not feel guilty for leaving and keeping my daughter safe?

The right-wingers who beat women and rape... are gaining more power due to their lies and scapegoating refugees to benefit claimers...

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation said economic growth on its own won't be enough to help the poorest families.

I’m feeling suspended - with everything going on around us being so challenging, I’m really struggling to regulate my own life.

I read the ‘self-help’ blurb that is all over our socials, and I listen to the advice of professionals hoping that someone might just hold my hand for a bit.

I am tired, skint, challenged every day by my lovely but difficult son. I’m in the menopause and as a former smoker I’m worried sick about my health. I do have a health condition which puts me at great risk of strokes and heart failure, but I don’t think I realised until now just how serious it is. It’s a lifelong genetic condition which meant that I had to have treatment as a child, and I take medication every day to counteract the nasty side of the disease.

All of the things I face daily have finally impacted me so much, that I feel suspended. I feel that I can’t move forward, and of course I can’t go back. What can I do to change this?

When we aren’t able to take basic care of ourselves, it means that things we have to do and people who rely on us, suffer too. However much I might want to take my disengaged teen out to try to embed a good memory, I can’t. I haven’t the energy or resilience any longer to think up anything that might appeal to him, and even if I did have, I haven’t got the budget.

It’s a horror circle. I can’t work full time in a job that might pay well because my son’s needs seem to be escalating as he is in his mid teens. The specialist school we finally secured for him has put him on a significantly reduced timetable. That hugely impacts what I can do to earn some extra money, and it causes him to have elevated anxiety levels which then impact his treatment of me and our home. And of course, it means we remain in a welfare trap with a low income that cannot support a good life.

This is not what I dreamed of as I worked hard in my career when I was younger. This in fact, bears no resemblance to anything I imagined.

We are lucky, we have a home, I’m mobile, but ultimately the home needs a lot of work which I can’t afford. And no matter how hard I try, I don’t have the skills to complete it. I’ll have a go, but in my 50’s, feeling ill and exhausted, it’s often not possible to do more than I already am.

I feel proud of myself for getting through the day right now, but that is tinged with melancholy and thoughts of what my life should have been if it were true that hard work gets you places. It doesn’t, not always.

I laid a laminate floor though, and I replaced floorboards recently, so I guess I’m not done yet!

Hi. Just answering the big question of the week, thank you. I think that I having been on the project from the beginning. This feels really like we're in a really good place. I love the opportunities that come with the project, and it feels really important that we're sort of recognize that we all bring in different skill sets to create a collective experience of low income and poverty.



But our responses, and our experiences, are still different, and that is really helpful, I think, when you're working to South England with large groups of people, it can really balance out your own situation and it can really balance out how you feel and how you deal with things. There were teething problems at the beginning for me. There is obviously a power imbalance, and I think that acknowledging that, you know, in part, we can't change that—that is just the nature of what we're doing. You know, there is a paid team of researchers who are in a better position than we are, largely.

But I do believe, as well, that there are people on the project and on the research and stakeholders team, who have had either direct experience of what some of us as participants are going through and what I've been through. Or know someone. So, I think it's like not we're not as different as it might look to the outside, and it feels really important that we trust people and the process. And also feel psychologically safe to speak out if something isn't working, right? And I do think, largely, we sort of get that, really. This is really balanced in the project.

We let everyone tell stories without judgment.

I've loved being a part of Changing Realities, taking part in various market research sessions, and also writing an article for the Guardian. It makes me feel useful. Rather than sitting and moaning about difficulties, I feel like an active part in striving for change and a better future.

The big question of the week really helps me because it gives me direction of what topics to blog and comment on.

Sometimes I feel, like, when I write in my diary entries I question the relevance of what I am writing. For example, I question wether the content is Interesting or relevant to anyone else. I also sometimes wonder if my diary entries are too negative? I think for this reason I prefer answering the question of the week.

I feel like I have been constantly ill or looking after a poorly child since before Christmas. It’s been tonsillitis, ear infections, colds, sick bug and now Covid. I’m eternally grateful for the job I have now, and I’ve worked from home through it all. But it does make me think, two years ago I was working in a warehouse and I would lose so much pay. I would be penalised by work for it. There are not enough protections in place for working parents, and I feel for people in that situation, as I know how hard it is.

I really like working on Teams. I know it’s not everyone’s first choice, but not everyone is mobile, or they have childcare ect and are not be able to meet. I like that, and the evening times work well as many of us still work and it’s around when the kids go to bed, so the timing is really good.