It is vital that people with lived experience play an active role in shaping the field of complex care.

Amplify, our consumer voices bureau, was created to increase opportunities for organizations across the country to build partnerships with people with lived experience of complex health and social needs to strengthen their work.

While most speakers bureaus focus exclusively on providing experts to speak at events, Amplify also supports inclusion of people with lived experience in other capacities beyond speaking engagements, such as participating in convenings, conferences, advisory boards, working groups, program design, evaluation, consulting, research, policy initiatives, and other project work.

We ask that all organizations who connect to consumers through Amplify first review our values statement, which lists principles for authentic and empowering consumer engagement, and commit to actualizing these principles to the greatest extent possible in your work.

We have learned a lot from speaking with consumers and partners about how organizations can employ authentic and empowering consumer engagement and storytelling practices.

Amplify, our consumer voices bureau, promotes the notion that “organizations should be microphones for people to tell their own stories in ways that highlight their humanity and foster empathy.” We borrow this phrasing from Kate Marple, whose guide on empathetic social change storytelling is an excellent resource for further reading.