About the episode In this episode Kellie sits down with Bob Bharij, founder and chief executive of Foundation for Change, an independent London charity supporting people rebuilding their lives after drug and alcohol addiction. Bob explains why his organisation describes its work as power informed rather than just trauma informed, teaching the people it works with psychology, philosophy and feminist theory so they can understand how power operates in society and how it has shaped their own lives. He traces his path into the work, from a psychology degree he came to distrust, through teaching English in Japan and on the Tibetan Plateau, to the funding cut that pushed him to found Foundation for Change twelve years ago. The conversation moves through the framework of values that keeps his team's culture genuine as it grows, why he rejects the idea that the charity sector and the business world are fundamentally different worlds, and closes on his guiding idea: outer change needs inner change. Key takeaways "Power informed," not just trauma informed. Foundation for Change teaches the people it works with psychology, philosophy and feminist theory, so they understand how power operates in society and how it has shaped their own lives. He thought going solo could not be that hard. Twelve years on, the charity is still going, however they have endured many challenges in that time!The team lives by twelve values, qualities and ways of being. Authenticity, communication, critical thinking and awareness of your own trauma are among them. Bob calls them a spine that runs through everything the organisation does.Culture is built through small, repeated practices. A Monday morning check-in, bi-monthly retrospectives and quarterly away days keep the team connected to itself and to its values.People are not just their work selves. Bob pushes back on the idea that employees should leave their personal lives at the door, arguing that emotions, health and care responsibilities do not disappear just because someone has clocked in.Outer change needs inner change. Bob's closing message is that any change you are trying to create, in yourself, your team or the wider world, starts with getting deeply connected to your own inner world first. About Bob Bob Bharij is founder and Chief Executive of Foundation for Change (FfC). He co-developed the FfC Approach over a ten-year period working within mainstream drug and alcohol treatment services from 2004 to 2014, witnessing first-hand how broken and disempowering the system was for the people it aimed to support. But the model also grew out of something more personal: his journey of making sense of his own experiences of social inequality, not through formal education but through exposure to powerful ideas from psychology, philosophy and social history. These disciplines gave him a framework to understand existential suffering not as personal failure but as a response to wider systemic conditions. He recognised that this kind of knowledge, so impactful and clarifying, was rarely accessible to the people he worked with in treatment settings, despite how profoundly it could change their lives. He believes everyone has the right to flourish and to access the knowledge that makes that possible and built FfC around the idea that education, not intervention, is what gives people a lasting way out. He was elected an Ashoka Fellow in 2020, one of the world's most respected recognitions of social innovation and became a Fellow of the Centre for Innovation in Voluntary Action (CIVA) in 2026. Also mentioned Foundation for Change, Bob's not-for-profit organisationBob's "power informed" framework, built on psychology, philosophy and feminist theoryThe twelve values, qualities and ways of being that run through Foundation for Change's cultureThe idea of the polycrisis or metacrisis, referenced by Bob in relation to climate, capitalism and patriarchyConnect with Bob on LinkedIn
