Blogs & conversations - The Churchill Fellowship
The Churchill Fellowship
become a fellow

News & views

Blogs & conversations

Churchill Fellows offer their views and advice on topical issues, based on global research and UK activities.

To connect with a Fellow, please go to their Profile page. To find related content, click the tag under each item below. To receive regular blog alerts, sign up at the foot of this page.

If you are a Fellow and would like to write a blog for us, please email communications@churchillfellowship.org to discuss the topic you have in mind.

Blogs & conversations

Making the case for a national eating disorders strategy

Stephen Watkins reflects on how his Fellowship helped strengthen the case for a national eating disorders strategy in the UK. Drawing on learning from Australia, New Zealand, and Sweden, he explores how nationally coordinated approaches can improve access to care and outcomes for people and families affected by eating disorders. Since returning, Stephen has shared his findings with ministers, policymakers, providers, and service user and carer organisations, helping to inform emerging national guidance on eating disorder support.

By Stephen Watkins, 29 October 2026

Blogs & conversations

Making the case for a national eating disorders strategy

Stephen Watkins reflects on how his Fellowship helped strengthen the case for a national eating disorders strategy in the UK. Drawing on learning from Australia, New Zealand, and Sweden, he explores how nationally coordinated approaches can improve access to care and outcomes for people and families affected by eating disorders. Since returning, Stephen has shared his findings with ministers, policymakers, providers, and service user and carer organisations, helping to inform emerging national guidance on eating disorder support.

By Stephen Watkins, 29 October 2026

Blogs & conversations

Power shapes everything. So why don’t we understand it better?

Suzanne Alleyne reflects on how her Churchill Fellowship helped deepen her understanding of power and its effects on how we think, feel, and behave. Drawing on learning from South Africa and Canada, she explores the connections between neuroscience, lived experience, art, and organisational practice. Suzanne shares how this learning continues to shape her work, and why understanding power can help people build agency, make better decisions, and create conditions in which more people can thrive.

By Suzanne Alleyne, 22 October 2026

Blogs & conversations

World Homeless Day: Preventing homeless deaths through harm reduction

Gill Taylor reflects on how her Churchill Fellowship is exploring harm reduction approaches to help prevent deaths among people experiencing homelessness. Drawing on field research in Canada, she shares how peer-led services, overdose prevention support, and low-barrier access to care can help keep people safe while protecting dignity. Following World Homeless Day, Gill argues that preventing deaths requires a whole-system approach, with people with lived experience of homelessness and drug dependency at its heart.

By Gill Robin Taylor, 15 October 2026

Blogs & conversations

Looking abroad for solutions

Andrew Morris reflects on how his experience as an IPP prisoner shaped his commitment to criminal justice reform and led to his Churchill Fellowship. Travelling to Norway and New Zealand, he will explore rehabilitation-focused and restorative justice systems, looking at what becomes possible when justice is built around the belief that people can change. Through his work with New Wave Trust and wider policy engagement, he hopes to bring back practical learning that can support reform in the UK.

By Andrew Morris, 8 October 2026

Blogs & conversations

In conversation with Ehinor Otaigbe: Protecting children by helping mothers escape abuse

We spoke to Ehinor Otaigbe MBE about how her Churchill Fellowship is shaping her work to support African women and children affected by domestic abuse. Drawing on her own experience, her work through Wonderfully Made Woman, and learning from organisations in Nigeria, Atlanta, and New York, Ehinor reflects on why children’s trauma must not be treated as an afterthought in domestic abuse support. She shares how her Fellowship is helping her shift conversations in the UK, working with faith and community leaders to support women and children to heal and move forward.

By Ehinor Otaigbe, 24 September 2026

Blogs & conversations

Beyond shelter: a different model for tackling homelessness

Ella Hancock reflects on how her Fellowship explored whether shared housing could offer more choice, dignity, and belonging for people at risk of homelessness. Drawing on visits to cohousing communities in the Netherlands, Sweden, and the US, she shares how shared spaces, community-led models, and resident agency can help reduce isolation and create more supportive places to live. As the housing crisis deepens, Ella argues that the strongest ideas from cohousing could help shape more affordable, inclusive housing in the UK.

By Ella Hancock, 17 September 2026

Blogs & conversations

Protecting the power to question

Through her Fellowship, Daria explored how civic space can remain resilient when people’s ability to question, organise, and participate comes under pressure. Focusing on Central Asia, she examined how critical thinking, art, and positive narratives can help people practise “oppositional muscle” and imagine more open democratic futures. Published to mark International Day of Democracy, the blog reflects on why protecting civic voice matters in the UK and around the world.

By Daria Cybulska, 10 September 2026

Blogs & conversations

Building protection around children with experience of care

Through the first leg of his Fellowship in the USA, Grant Trainer explored what it means to protect and support children with experience of care. Drawing on learning from organisations in Albany, New York City, Brooklyn, and Seattle, he reflects on approaches that place children’s identity, dignity, and relationships at the heart of protection. He is now bringing this learning back to Scotland, where it is shaping his research into policing, care experience, and trauma-informed support, ahead of the next stage of his Fellowship in New Zealand.

By Grant Trainer, 3 September 2026

Blogs & conversations

It takes a village: trauma-responsive communities are pivotal to addressing youth violence

Through her Churchill Fellowship, Ruth Oshikanlu explored youth violence as a public health and trauma crisis, rather than simply a criminal justice issue. Travelling to the USA and Australia, she learned from police officers, nurses, teachers, psychologists, community healers, young people, families, and Indigenous Elders about what it takes to build trauma-responsive systems. She is now using this learning to develop a Trauma-Responsive Community Network in her local borough, bringing together those who work with children and young people to create safer, more connected support.

By Ruth Oshikanlu, 27 August 2026

Blogs & conversations

In conversation with Melvin Hartley: Harnessing the power of spontaneous volunteers

We spoke to Melvin Hartley about how his Churchill Fellowship helped him put spontaneous volunteering into practice during the Covid pandemic and beyond. After travelling to the USA to explore how volunteers are organised in response to disasters, Melvin returned to the UK just as lockdown began and used his learning to coordinate community support in Hampshire. His Fellowship also helped shape HYPER (Hampshire Young People’s Emergency Response), showing how older teenagers can play an active role in emergency response.

By Melvin Hartley, 20 August 2026

Blogs & conversations

In conversation with Melvin Hartley: Harnessing the power of spontaneous volunteers

We spoke to Melvin Hartley about how his Churchill Fellowship helped him put spontaneous volunteering into practice during the Covid pandemic and beyond. After travelling to the USA to explore how volunteers are organised in response to disasters, Melvin returned to the UK just as lockdown began and used his learning to coordinate community support in Hampshire. His Fellowship also helped shape HYPER (Hampshire Young People’s Emergency Response), showing how older teenagers can play an active role in emergency response.

By Melvin Hartley, 20 August 2026

Newsletter Sign Up