News & Events 21 May 2025

HELPING HANDS: A Conference on the workforce and wellbeing in the advice sector.

This event - organised by London Citizens Advice and London Legal Support Trust - is a collaboration between Advice Workforce Development Fund and the Advising Londoners Partnership supported by the Greater London Authority; it will bring together professionals from across the advice sector to discuss key challenges, share best practices, and explore the future of our workforce. 

The focus of the Conference is on how best to support a diverse workforce in the advice sector and foster wellbeing, looking at organisational leadership, how to engage communities of lived experience in shaping Equality, Inclusion and Diversity, our people strategy, and great human resource management. 

Every day, advisers are out supporting people in the community who are strugging with problems - and our services are facing more challenges with rising demand, stretched resources, and clients with more complex problems. This Conference is an opportunity for the sector to come together to celebrate the workforce. We aim to to talk honestly about the challenges, and to share solutions.

Please join us to listen to inspiring speakers, engage in insightful discussions, and valuable networking opportunities. 

The Conference is open to Chief Officers, managers, advisers and volunteers.

Event Details:

📅 Date: 25 June 2025

📍 Location: Simmons and Simmons, CityPoint, 1 Ropemaker St, City of London, London EC2Y 9SS (Nearest Tube, Moorgate). 

🕘 Time: 10am - 4.30pm. Lunch is provided. 

In addition to plenary panels, there will bereakout sessions covering

• Organisational culture - how do workforce issues of recruitment and retention link to wider organisational culture
• Staff wellbeing - challenges, what works, what more can we do
• DDPO (Deaf and Disabled Peoples Organisations) projects' learning on recruitment and retention of deaf and disabled people in the advice workforce, 
• Learning from "Grow your own" projects on recruitment and retention, collaboration and apprenticeship models, 
• Issues of Pay and Conditions in the sector, including new research that will be published at the Conference
• Progress towards a London-wide Advice Strategy

Contributors will include Jo Hickman, Nezhat Cihan, Liz Bayram, James Sandbach and other colleagues from across the sector.

If you Register for the Conference directly via Eventbrite, we will send out more detail on the agenda and confirmed speakers shortly.