Money Advice Trust

Holly Tuke explains to Chris Fitch how understanding the everyday joys of cooking chips, make-up tips, and going to gigs as a blind person, can help essential services tackle the challenges that their blind customers and colleagues face in a majority-sighted world. Holly also schools Chris on visual language, self-descriptions, and why Braille isn’t everything. https://lifeofablindgirl.com/ https:...

Just 11-14% of UK adults in a vulnerable situation have ever disclosed this to an essential service firm, despite the help it might lead to. So why are consumers staying quiet? And how can firms get them to disclose their situation and needs? Alexis Stevens explains what firms can do, and shares her mixed experiences of disclosing her bipolar disorder to get help. www.linkedin.com/in/alexis-steven...

Just how are 999 staff trained to talk, listen, and remain calm as vulnerable callers seek urgent help? In this episode, Mike Modder-Fitch shares his experience of running Police Force Control Rooms and NHS Integrated Care Contact Centres, and explains just what essential service staff can learn from their counter-parts in 999 settings. Mike also explains what his journey from previously running e...

In this episode, Swindon Borough Council give away (for free) their AI tool which translates documents into an Easy Read format for people with learning disabilities or literacy difficulties. Chris Fitch picks up his jaw from the floor as Annie Baker explains more about ‘Simply Readable’, and Tom and Lilly describe their expert by experience role in the project. www.youtube.com/watch?v=leQegdK-1M8...

Of the 650,00 people who die each year in the UK, many will have been living with a terminal illness. David Williams shares the practical strategies used on the Marie Curie Information Support Line to have more helpful, natural, and practically useful conversations with terminally ill people and their families. https://www.mariecurie.org.uk/

Kicking-off our new Season, Celia Chartres-Aris takes us on a crash-course on ‘ableism’ - a term many disabled people have embraced as reflecting their specific experience of discrimination, but which others have sceptically viewed as another buzzword in an already complex discussion. Links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/celia-chartres-aris/?originalSubdomain=uk https://unlearningableism.com/

In this episode, we tackle the Sunflower Lanyard scheme, a global initiative that helps people with hidden disabilities signal their need for support and understanding in public and workplace spaces. Talking with Paul White (Chief Executive), we look behind the green and yellow lanyard to uncover the scheme’s origin story, its lesser-known support offerings, and imminent digital evolution. https:/...

This episode dives into the fascinating world of accessible numbers with Laura Parker, a ‘numbers’ specialist. Laura explains to Chris Fitch what accessible numbers are, how they affect everyone’s life (including her own experience of dyscalculia), and shares five tips for making numbers more accessible for everyone. https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauramarieparker/

Kathryn Townsend, the out-going Government Disability and Access Ambassador for Banking, asks the question we’ve all asked ourselves at some point: have I actually made things better here?   In a personal and frank conversation, Kathryn reflects on the extent to which she has reformed the banking sector for disabled customers, the obstacles and conflicts she has encountered in doing this, and how...

What happens when ‘good intentions’ create ‘bad design’? In this 20 minute episode, the internationally renowned writer Liz Jackson talks about how well-meaning attempts to design innovative products and services for disabled people often end in practical failure, and outlines 5 ways to distinguish ‘good’ from ‘bad’ disability designs. You can find out more about Liz and her work at https://linktr...

In the UK, we send around 110 million texts every day. In today’s episode, Victoria Hornby (Chief Executive of Shout, the UK’s only 24/7 text service for anyone struggling to cope) talks with Chris Fitch about text-based conversations and crisis, how Shout works, and what essential services can learn from Shout’s strategies for managing crisis conversations on a digital channel. You can find out m...

In this 20 minute episode, we examine what it is like to work on ‘vulnerable consumer’ issues for a living, while personally experiencing vulnerability, harm, and difficulty at the same time. Sharing their thoughts, experiences, and advice with Chris Fitch on “being vulnerable, while working in vulnerability” are Makedah Simpson (UK Regulators’ Network) and Rosie Lyon (Vulnerability Specialist at...

Our latest 20 minute episode focuses on the issue of dependency, addictions, and what essential services can do to support customers with drug, alcohol, gambling, or other related problems. Jamie Compton-Rea explains to Chris Fitch about the steps that services can take, and just what is realistic and effective action in such dependency situations. Find out more about Jamie at his upcoming course...

Our latest 20 minute episode focuses on the more than 5 million unpaid UK carers who are supporting someone with a physical, mental health, or old-age related problem. Trevor Salomon explains to Chris Fitch about the reality and impact of being an unpaid carer to his wife Yvonne (diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s in 2013), and how essential services can better identify and support carers. Fin...

In the UK, half a million older people report going 5-6 days a week without seeing or speaking to anyone, while a younger cohort aged 16-29 are now reporting loneliness twice as much as those over 70. So in this episode, Chris Fitch spoke to Amy Perrin from the only charity in the UK dedicated to tackling loneliness: the Marmalade Trust (named after Paddington Bear’s friendly qualities). Chris ask...

In this episode, we focus on the 1-in-5 UK consumers living with some form of facial or bodily scarring, mark, or condition that makes them look or feel significantly different. Known as ‘visible difference’, our host Chris Fitch talks to Sudha Vijay from the charity Changing Faces about her experiences as a consumer with visible difference, while Jane Rodrick and Michaela Baker explain the approa...

Around 12 million UK adults - 1-in-every-5 of our customers - are living with hearing loss which makes following speech and conversations difficult. Inclusion specialist Tim Scannell – profoundly deaf and a BSL user – joins Chris Fitch to discuss improvements to essential service design and operation, and what can be done to avoid customers with hearing loss feeling overlooked, forgotten, or treat...

Like vulnerability, trust matters. Behavioural scientist, Charlie Nixon from Cowry Consulting talks to Chris Fitch about how trust determines what products we buy, which organisations we agree to let deliver our essential services, and just what we tell these firms about ourselves. And, most importantly, how vulnerable consumers decide who is trustworthy and who is not? Charlie can be found at htt...

This episode focuses on stammering (also known as stuttering). Talking with Lyndsay Edgington from the national stammering charity STAMMA, our host Chris Fitch listens as Lyndsay explains how staff in banks, energy, and retail organisations can better understand and meet the needs of the 1 in 100 customers who will stammer. You can find out more about STAMMA at https://stamma.org/, including their...

In this episode on empathy, Chris Fitch asks Mathieu Lajante: just what is empathy? Is it possible to train people to become more empathetic? And are empathy training courses a worthwhile investment in terms of time, money, and results for our organisations and staff? Mathieu is Associate Professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, Director of its Consumer Neuroscience Laboratory, and lead autho...

For this fascinating ‘end of 2023’ episode, Lee Walls talks to Chris Fitch about the science, experience, and lessons for life and vulnerability, of being a fire-walker. Lee explains how walking over 350 degree red hot coals can help understand and reframe situations of personal and customer vulnerability, and how her own lived experience of alcohol addiction led to her stepping into, and onto, fi...

Katie Mackay and Jack Hatcher – from the Nationwide Building Society – talk to Chris Fitch about their ‘Speak Easy’ initiative to support non-speaking and non-verbal customers. Katie explains how her experiences of being non-speaking in certain situations informed its development, while Jack shares findings and communication lessons from the ‘Speak Easy’ pilot in Nationwide branches. You can find...

Joshua Aspden – a specialist in financial inclusion among refugee and asylum seeker populations joins Chris Fitch to talk about his work in helping helped thousands of people to make sense with not just a new country and culture, but with an entirely different system of financial and essential services. Josh talks about his own experience of being new to the UK, his work with asylum seekers and re...

Best-selling author Tim Farmer joins Chris Fitch to chat about mental capacity, decision-making, and his latest book “Grandpa on a Skateboard. The practicalities of assessing mental capacity and unwise decisions”. Clinical Director at Comentis, Tim takes Chris on a tour of the practical action needed to identify and support customers with decision-making limitations (both online and off-line), as...

Steve Donovan from Ovo Energy talks with Chris Fitch about a tool that everyone working with customers will use every single day, but which most of us probably don’t give enough attention, care, or love to: our voice. Steve walks Chris through the Ovo training team’s ‘tone of voice’ model (covering pitch, pace, volume, energy, and articulation), talks about using this with vulnerable customers, an...