Rachel Brennan is a prominent figure in the homelessness and social change sector, known for her work with the UK charity Groundswell where she leads efforts to involve people with lived experience in research, policy, and advocacy. Her role connects frontline insight with systemlevel change, helping to shape how homelessness services understand and respond to the real needs of those affected. Through her leadership, Rachel has helped expand participatory research, influence national strategies, and support meaningful involvement of people who have experienced homelessness in decisionmaking processes. Her work exemplifies how grassroots knowledge and professional research can come together to drive more compassionate, effective solutions.
Who Is Rachel Brennan?
Rachel Brennan serves as the Director of Participation, Progression, and Change at the charity Groundswell, a UKbased organisation that works to end homelessness. In this capacity, she focuses on ensuring that the voices and expertise of people with lived experience of homelessness are central to research, policy recommendations, and programme development. Before her current leadership role, she worked on healthrelated homelessness projects and services, contributing to evidence and practice aimed at reducing health disparities among people experiencing homelessness.
Her career includes managing homeless healthcare services and leading initiatives to integrate livedexperience insight into service design. This background has helped make her a key advocate in shaping how Groundswell approaches research, policy engagement, and coproduction with experts by experience.
What Is Groundswell?
Groundswell is a charity based in the United Kingdom focused on tackling homelessness through participatory research, peer engagement, and national advocacy. The organisation believes that people with experience of homelessness bring essential knowledge and expertise that should inform decisions about policies and services that affect their lives. Groundswell’s work includes research projects, advocacy campaigns, and collaborations with service providers, local authorities, and government bodies to improve outcomes for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness.
The charity’s model emphasises the importance of coproduction and lived experience participation, meaning that people who have been homeless are actively involved in project design, delivery, and evaluation. Through this approach, Groundswell aims to create solutions that are grounded in real experience rather than assumptions.
Groundswell’s Approach and Values
- Encouraging participatory research that includes people with lived experience at all stages.
- Collaborating with decisionmakers to shape homelessness policy and services.
- Championing coproduction to ensure services reflect real needs and priorities.
Groundswell’s work demonstrates how involving people who have experienced homelessness leads to better understanding and longerlasting solutions. Rather than performing research on people, they advocate for research with people, which enhances relevance and impact.
Rachel Brennan’s Role at Groundswell
As Director of Participation, Progression, and Change, Rachel Brennan plays a central role in shaping how Groundswell operates and influences change. Her job involves bridging lived experience with academic research and policy development. She leads teams that conduct participatory research a methodology that actively involves people who have lived through homelessness in data collection, analysis, and interpretation. Her leadership helps ensure that research findings reflect lived realities rather than abstract assumptions.
In this role, Rachel is also responsible for progression pathways within the organisation, supporting people who have experienced homelessness to move into roles where they can advocate, build skills, and participate meaningfully in decisionmaking processes. This focus on both participation and progression underscores her belief in empowering individuals not just to contribute once, but to grow as leaders and changemakers.
Shaping National Homelessness Strategy
One of the significant ways Rachel Brennan has influenced homelessness policy is through her involvement in shaping broader national strategies. For example, her work with Groundswell helped coordinate lived experience forums that contributed to the development of a national homelessness strategy in the UK. These forums provided insights directly from people experiencing or at risk of homelessness, ensuring that strategies do not just reflect institutional priorities but also the realities faced by individuals.
Rachel highlighted that such engagement leads to stronger, more compassionate, and more effective policy solutions. Her contributions emphasise that policies designed without the voices of those affected are less likely to produce meaningful results.
Participatory Research and Its Impact
Participatory research is at the heart of Rachel’s work at Groundswell. Rather than researchers operating independently, participatory research involves people with lived experience in choosing research questions, gathering data, and shaping interpretations. This method helps uncover realities that traditional research might overlook, such as barriers to services, the emotional experience of homelessness, or insights into how systems interact in people’s everyday lives.
Under Rachel’s leadership, Groundswell has developed ethical and inclusive research practices that respect participants’ dignity and prioritise creative engagement methods. These practices not only generate richer data but also help participants feel valued and respected for their contributions.
Benefits of Participatory Research
- Generates insights grounded in lived reality rather than assumptions.
- Builds skills and confidence among people who participate.
- Influences policy and practice more effectively by highlighting real experiences.
Rachel’s commitment to participatory methods reflects a broader shift in social research towards valuing experiential knowledge as a form of expertise. Her work demonstrates that participatory approaches not only inform better services but also empower individuals who have traditionally been marginalised.
Collaboration and Partnerships
Another key aspect of Rachel Brennan’s work is fostering collaboration between Groundswell and other organisations, including national policymakers, research institutions, and homelessness services. For example, Groundswell partnered with the Royal Foundation and other charities in a programme aimed at improving homelessness services through coordinated advocacy and lived experience involvement. Rachel’s role in these partnerships often involves advocating for meaningful participation rather than token representation.
Her work underscores the idea that solving complex social problems like homelessness requires crosssector cooperation and shared expertise. By bringing different stakeholders together from frontline workers to policymakers Rachel helps ensure solutions are both informed by evidence and grounded in reality.
Why Her Work Matters
Rachel Brennan’s contributions are significant because they bridge the gap between people with lived experience and the systems that are designed to serve them. Her work helps shift narratives about homelessness away from stereotypes and towards understanding based on real stories, evidenced insights, and collaborative problemsolving. By championing participation and progression, she supports not just better research and policies, but also opportunities for individuals to reclaim agency and influence the systems that affect their lives.
Her leadership illustrates how organisations like Groundswell can lead meaningful change by embracing inclusive methods and respecting experiential knowledge as essential. This approach not only improves services for people experiencing homelessness but also sets a standard for how social research and policy can be more democratic, equitable, and effective.
Rachel Brennan’s work with Groundswell represents an impactful blend of advocacy, research, and participatory leadership aimed at transforming how homelessness is understood and addressed. Her focus on lived experience participation, influence on national strategies, and dedication to collaborative research helps build more compassionate and practical solutions. Through her role as Director of Participation, Progression, and Change, she continues to shape an approach that values people’s voices not only as data sources but as drivers of change. Her work demonstrates that when lived experience is placed at the heart of research and policy, stronger, more effective, and more humane solutions emerge.