Hey. I'm Darek,
a homelessness practitioner, experiences seeker and critical friend.
I work with people with lived experience and courageous organisations to co-produce high-impact services, systems and spaces that people care about.
My Community Consultancy Practice is shaped by my personal journey.
Hey. I'm Darek,
a homelessness practitioner, experiences seeker and critical friend.
I work with people with lived experience and courageous organisations to co-produce high-impact services, systems and spaces that people care about.
My Community Consultancy Practice is shaped by my personal journey.
Curiosity drives change.
I value professional and lived experience equally. With people, I create a safe space to practice curiosity, increase our capacity to listen and share knowledge. I build relationships of care.
My approach is grounded in more than 15 years of daily practice in actively listening to and assisting individuals who have experienced homelessness and migration. I lead agile teams through discovery and implementation.
Make informed decisions, collectively.
I work as a consultant, critical friend and fieldwork researcher. I facilitate community-led discovery workshops, so you can build or improve services with people and for people.
Reflect on your practice (critical friendship)
I work as a critical friend and offer support for professionals to notice, understand and enhance their practice. I foster an environment of radical listening by working in solidarity with courageous professionals in charity sector to make or improve something that they all care about.
Courage Rehearsals (discovery and research)
I bring together diverse perspectives to generate and rehearse courageous ideas or solutions that reflect the collective insights and needs of people, communities and professionals. I believe in openness, professional ethics, and learning by doing.
Work
Treatment
Challenge: Denial of access to alcohol treatment services in the UK for rough sleepers originating from EU (2014-2015)
Action: I used the Asset-Based Community Development method to co-design a new service called META (known as METRO). It was a response to systemic denial of access to ultimately life-saving …
Recovery
Challenge: Low number of referrals and low level of client engagement with Horticultural and Construction Skills services (homelessness sector).
Action: I led 3 months service development project with objectives to gather evidence from key stakeholders about barriers and enablers to referral and retention …
Solidarity
Challenge: How might we adapt our current solidarity activities to address new challenges?
Action: I developed co-productive approach for a charity working with people with experience of homelessness to implement a range of new Solidarity Initiatives. Discovery phase included desk research, qualitative interviews with local authority’s …
About
Darek works with ambitious charities and organisations to create high-impact services, systems and spaces that people care about. He is a homelessness professional with over 15 years of experience ranging from street outreach, to assessment and specialist services for people with experience of migration.
He has a passion for innovation and evidence-based service design. He lead discovery phase of Solidarity Initiatives programme for a local charity; planned change through community driven design (co-design) and facilitated co-production week to involve residents, local authority, local charities in transformation of Solidarity Initiatives.
He collaborated with people at all levels of seniority in the UK and EU countries to make sustainable change locally for present and future populations experiencing homelessness.
Darek has in-depth understanding of current housing and immigration legislation. He managed the Greater London Authority funded services, which aimed to support rough sleepers to find sustainable routes off the street through a combination of immigration advice and specialist support to access housing in the UK and abroad. He developed a number of innovative partnerships, including universities and service design agencies to inform and transform people’s experience of the services.
Darek holds a MA in Education and focused his research on links between critical pedagogy and independent theatre and its impact on social movements in Poland in 80s.
In his free time he works on a family-owned apple and cherry farm.
(DAH-rek Kar-VAT-skee)
