Passion. Experience. Impact.
Who we are
Habitus is a lived experience-led collective. We specialise in peer support, co-production, participatory research, and evaluation, and our work is grounded in the belief that people with lived experience should be leading and shaping change in mental health and community care.
We work internationally, alongside local and national governments, the NHS, non-governmental organisations, and grassroots and community mental health organisations, and we bring the same care to a small lived-experience-led group as to a large health system. Much of what we do is community engagement, done with the people and communities the work is for, from the first conversations through to design, delivery, and evaluation.
We find answers, build tools, and leave you with what you need to keep delivering impact long after our work together ends.
How we can help you
Extensive experience across sectors, and support shaped around what you need.
At any stage your organisation is in, we can support you to get the results you want. With a grounded and collaborative practice, we find answers, build tools, and put solutions in place in the way that works for you.
Sector experience:
Mental health
Substance use and addictions
Children and youth
Disability
Immigrants, refugees, and ethnocultural communities
Diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging
Housing and homelessness, including Housing First
Public health
Areas of expertise:
Peer support service delivery, quality assurance, training, and evaluation
Co-production and community engagement
Participatory and peer research
Research and multi-method evaluation
Knowledge mobilisation (turning research into action)
Collective impact and alumni networks
Design theory and user experience mapping
Systems change evaluation
For examples of the type of support we provide, see our previous work:
What we bring
Habitus is about transforming health and social care, with the people who use it in the lead.
We are an experienced, international collective of community and health thinkers, service designers, researchers, and peer researchers, focused on local solutions. We design bold services alongside the communities they are for, so they work now and hold up over the long term, and we use the latest global research to build approaches, tools, and programmes that drive change and embed good practice in your organisation.
Supporting our clients to achieve what matters to them is at the heart of what we do. Our fundraising support has helped charity clients secure over £1m to grow and sustain their work.
History
Habitus [ha-buh-tuhs] noun, plural hab·i·tus.
The way each person perceives the world around them, and how they react, based on their experiences.
In December 2014, in a small suburb of a city in Western Canada, a group of leaders from tech, health, community services and the Arts sectors came together in a disused shopfront to discuss how we could do things differently.
We shared what was important to us: improving community and health services with better data and planning.
What gaps we saw in our sector: a limited ability to track the impact of interventions in a complex system.
We then created a plan for how we could use our collective skills and experiences to further advance health and community outcomes for the people we worked for and with.
Habitus Collective was formed on 1st September 2015.
Since then, we have worked with over 50 organisations, community groups, charities, local authorities, and health systems in more than nine countries. Through our international networks, we keep learning and sharing what is working and why, and our focus remains on the power of local communities and the leadership of people with lived experience.
With offices in Canada and the UK, we’re able to quickly share ideas and strategies between organisations, communities, and populations; accelerating the time it takes to turn great research and data, into practice, evidence, and impact.