Who We Work With
"Impact brings a really valuable cross-section of expertise and insights, using the rare collaboration of media and law and how they work together - and how they don’t work together. Chrisann, Shauneen and Fiona all have huge heart, but also razor-sharp professionalism and expertise. They made us feel accepted and celebrated. I’ve got so many cheesy words I could use but it was like being coached from one warrior to another: they really gave us a map to fight through this territory. Impact has the complement of a warm human heart with uncompromising commitment. It’s a territory that they invite you into, and I feel they are needed in so many spaces. In a word, Impact gives you validation."
Emma Crick | https://anuntoldstory-voices.com/
“Shauneen’s help and support has enabled us to take our work to the next level. Her experience of running an NGO while working as a lawyer brings a unique perspective, seeing the work through these two distinct lenses.
She brings a visionary approach, a wealth of ideas, structures and processes along with her first hand experience - all of which help us to make the decisions that are right for us while considering the broader context and where we want to sit. Shauneen has opened up her networks to us and always acts as a champion of us and our work.”
Youth Justice Legal Centre
Unity Project
“We are a volunteer-led team that supports people who have ‘No Recourse to Public Funds’ (NRPF). Because we’re so small and relatively young, we have to be focussed in what we do and when we met Fiona we had very limited knowledge or experience of media or comms, or the time or capacity to build this into our work. We were about to publish a report and wanted to publicise an impending Home Office review, and felt completely out of our depth.
The first thing that struck me about Fiona was that she didn’t want to hear about NRPF and how it affects people from me - she wanted to speak to someone who had experienced NRPF directly. I really appreciated this, as well as her sensitivity and flexibility about how to arrange for it to happen. She made time to come to one of our focus groups and was a lovely, unintimidating presence, and immediately grasped the issues.
Fiona has been really responsive to emails and phone calls. She has given us a lot of invaluable advice about how to approach journalists, and how to react to being approached. She helped us to get our first bit of coverage in the Guardian, and taught us how to have some say in the content of what was written in a way that I didn’t realise was possible.
It’s clear that Fiona really cares - both about people caught up in the immigration system, and about the organisations and individuals who are trying and sometimes struggling to help. This comes through on a professional level and also a personal one - when she asks how you are, you feel she means it. She also has a sense of humour and is easy to relate to. And - while her area of expertise is new to us - she is patient in explaining it, without being patronising. Despite my instinctive fear of media and journalism, Fiona’s sensitivity and wisdom meant I trusted her from the word go.”
Caz Hattam, Unity Project, co-ordinator
“It was a key point in our journey as an organisation, of coming to a shared understanding of what strategic litigation is (and isn’t) and how we can use it best across all the different departments and teams in Shelter, not just the legal team.”
Jo Underwood; Managing solicitor, strategic litigation team - Shelter
"I sought advice from Shauneen and Fiona about how I could make more impact and create change. They helped me think about including litigation in our campaign. Following their advice, we now have a case going before the European Court of Human Rights, which as well as being an important legal challenge, has been the springboard for considerable media interest.
Shauneen and Fiona were invaluable in helping me focus on key ideas for the campaign, leading to a communications plan and strong, clear messaging, starting with the name change, which was their idea. They helped me develop a strategic plan, enabling me to trust my own expertise in the subject, and see which routes would be most beneficial and likely turn into wins.
They gave me the benefit of their experience in many other areas: suggestions for funding models, helpful people to speak to, and generally helped me gain confidence as I began to work in areas that were not familiar to me. I honestly believe I would not have got my campaign to the stage we are at now, without their guidance, expertise and positivity.”
Charlotte Carew Pole; Head of Daughters' Rights | daughtersrights.co.uk
DCI Greece
"Fiona and Shauneen came to Athens to deliver a workshop to the migrant and refugee children sector. There was huge interest in the training and lawyers from 25 organisations who don't normally work together attended. By the end of the workshop, we had a tangible plan for taking forward two areas of strategic litigation, which would bring significant benefits to vulnerable children. We arrived at that point by consensus, after they led us through the process, which made clear how we could work together to achieve our common goals. We had been thinking about collective strategic litigation for a long time but had not been certain where to begin or how to pull together all the different strands of the work. The Impact process and the plan they produced have made it not only clear but make it feel achievable and exciting. Everyone was so impressed and energised that we have asked Fiona and Shauneen to come back again to run a further workshop to plan further pieces of litigation.”
Nantina Tsekeri, Head of Defence for Children International Greece | defenceforchildren.org/dci-greece/
“It is fair to say Shauneen and Fiona have transformed our lives. In many ways they activated the activists we have become: we feel confident leading and growing the movement that we started. They have given us media training and developed a leadership program that we now use with new Let us Learn members. We have been involved in litigation with them, worked with judges and lawyers, made films and have spoken on numerous public platforms. If you had told us five years ago we would be involved in a case in the UK Supreme Court and then go on to bring about change for thousands of young people we wouldn’t have believed it but in many ways that was just the beginning of our journeys to bring about the social change we want to see. What we have learnt is that anyone can be an agent for change. It is hard work but you get to make the world a better place, Shauneen and Fiona can help make the hard bits a little easier.”
Chrisann Jarrett, Dami Makinde – Let Us Learn/We Belong | letuslearn.study
"We engaged Lisa and her team to help Independent Age get a better overview of the most common and problematic equality and justice issues older people face and to help us better understand the range of ways we could use the law to address these issues. Lisa brought great expertise and intellectual rigour to the project and supported us in shaping the methodology and research approach for our inquiry. She was flexible and creative in managing and delivering the project to our objectives and we had a very trusting and collaborative relationship throughout. Lisa's expertise in this realm and her extensive network in both academia and in civil society meant that together we were able to reach the right stakeholders and get input from a range of perspectives. She demonstrated a depth of expertise, insight and judgement that was invaluable. The workshop and final report have given us a clear understanding of the range of issues and our future strategic options for the next stage of this programme of work."
Janet Morrison, Chief Executive, Independent Age | independentage.org
Matt and Martina Brincat Baines, with Shauneen and Fiona, delivering ‘Kesia’s law’ petition to the House of Lords
“We first came into contact with Shauneen and Fiona, following the sudden and tragic death of our daughter Kesia, 17, in December 2013. We were the subject of a lot of attention at that time, most of it unwanted, but on meeting the pair we realised we had found just the right people.
“From the outset they offered practical and emotional support in what was the most difficult of times. Coping with the early stages of grief is not easy in itself, however the added pressure of media attention, the inquest, and the knowledge that major mistakes had contributed to Kesia's death meant we really needed the right type of support and guidance. Shauneen and Fiona provided this.
“In the subsequent months we worked closely with Just for Kids Law in an attempt to get the law changed to make sure that what happened to Kesia would never happen to another child. Shauneen was instrumental in coordinating our #stillachildat17 campaign, and took absolute care of the legal aspect, which of course was far from our specialism. We relied heavily upon the support, guidance and encouragement she provided and at all times Shauneen was sensitive to our needs, yet continued to open up so many opportunities for our voice to be heard.
“The campaign really took off and Fiona was pivotal in spearheading the social media side. We gained so much support from so many different people and organisations due to the tireless work Fiona did. We will never forget the culmination of the campaign, a day of media interviews, which ended with us all sitting in the public gallery in the House of Lords hearing a government minister agreeing to accept "Kesia's law", the legislative amendment we had been calling for. Fiona organised and literally delivered us to multiple media outlets that day, which took in an appearance on the Breakfast Show on BBC radio Five Live in Salford; a live interview on BBC News 24; Radio 1 Newsbeat - and finally a meeting in the House of Lords.
“We often reflect upon how lucky we were to have found both Shauneen and Fiona at the most difficult of times back in 2013. Without them both, we would simply never have achieved what we did. Most importantly they gave Kesia a chance to leave a legacy, and protect future vulnerable young people from coming to harm. This for us is so very important. Thank you.”
Matthew and Martina Brincat Baines