Vikki Butler is the founder and co-director of Community Action in Research and Policy (C.A.R.P.) Collaborations; a not-for-profit social enterprise that furthers social inclusion through undertaking participatory evaluation, research and development. With a background in social sciences, youth work, training and policy; she has 30 years’ experience in developing participatory interdisciplinary approaches to community involvement and social inclusion within human services. She is not a proponent of any one particular method or school of thought, but instead creates bespoke methodologies to explore or solve an issue. A passionate advocate for equity and inclusion, she sees the role of researcher as utilising the right methods at the right time to enable dialogue between commissioners and communities, where individual voice, experience and ideas are listened to and acted upon.

Her research work uses innovative processes to explore the content of projects or programmes, often detailing the differences between strategic intention and the lived experience of people within marginalised communities. She uses her research approaches and findings as an evidence base to develop bespoke training courses and mentoring practice across health, social care and community services.