Friday 24 November 2023
Listen, learn, lead – co-production with experts by experience
This week is Safeguarding Adults Week. During this week, we'll be sharing daily bulletins with you, related to the Ann Craft Trust themes.
We're rounding off Safeguarding Adults Week 2023 with a look at co-production. Co-production is a process whereby service providers work with service users, often through the formation of a task and finish group, or through links with another organisation who supports the service users, to design a service or piece of work, together.
Co-production: what does it mean to us at Changing Futures Sussex and what can we learn from working collaboratively with Experts by Experience?
The Changing Futures programme is a £77 million joint initiative by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) and The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest community funder in the UK. The National Lottery Community Fund has invested over £21 million, adding to the £55 million of Government funding, extending the length of the programme to help local partnerships develop longer term and more effective support for those in need.
Changing Futures Sussex (East Sussex, Brighton & Hove, and West Sussex) focusses on meeting the needs of the most vulnerable people who repeatedly fall through the net, to achieve positive changes in services, to make them better connected, and easier to access.
We can’t do the work we want to do without involving people with lived experience, but it’s important to us to get this right, at the same time as being creative and ‘brave’ in trying things out.
We want Co-Production to be ‘Business as Usual’ not the exception – for us at Changing Futures Sussex, this means the meaningful and authentic participation of people with lived experiences of multiple disadvantage/multiple compound needs in shaping the systems and services that serve them.
Look at the Co-Production section on our website to read more about our values and principles around co-production in detail.
We are working hard to make sure that the voices of people with lived experience feed into all areas of the programme in as many ways as possible. We have been working alongside people with lived experience to develop this work and create these opportunities.
Alongside this we are constantly thinking about what works well for those we are wanting to hear from, and how can we make sure it’s safe, easy, and inviting for people to share their thoughts with us, in whatever way suits them best.
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Figure 1 shows how Changing Futures Sussex works, including the groups, delivery teams, and co-ordinators involved in the programme.
Figure 2 shows how Changing Futures Sussex has established a Lived Experience Network to bring people together to help them to co-produce.
We have also set up a Knowledge Hub, Co-Producing Co-Production Forums and run co- production events regularly. The links for all of these are on our website.
Why co-produce, though?
So, why is it better for a service to change from their established way of working to co-production with service users?
- The purpose of any service is to deliver that service to those who need it. It should be accessible to everyone from any demographic. Accessibility is a fundamental aspect of an effective service.
- Service users are best placed to inform how the services aren't accessible for them. If they aren't accessible for them, then the service hasn't been designed for others in similar circumstances.
- Working closely with the people who truly understand the needs of those falling through the cracks is the best way to understand the service's design flaws so the cracks can be filled.
- Genuinely co-producing with people with lived experience of multiple disadvantage can help the service reach those in the most chaotic circumstances.
Co-production and involvement can look very different depending on the service, area of work, organisation, outcome needed, activity and/or people involved. We learnt it’s best to offer as much variety as possible, especially in more potentially triggering environments such as safeguarding.
There are several different type of involvement such as: research and evaluation, volunteering, influencing, participation and leadership, and lots of ways to co-produce and include the voices of people with lived experience in your work including: connecting with existing networks and groups; case studies, quotes and written accounts; surveys, interviews, discussions and one to one’s; connecting with Peer Support Workers; establishing an Expert By Experience/Lived Experience Advisory Group; setting up forums and focus groups as and when needed; conducting research via Peer Researchers and having people with lived experience attend and fully participate in meetings and planning regularly.
The most important things to bear in mind are:
- It needs to be safe
- It must be trauma-informed
- It must be accessible
- It must be flexible and varied and able to adapt and change as needed
- It must be meaningful, especially to the people you are co-producing with
- It must be properly supported and resourced
- Go where the people you need to include are, don’t expect them to come to you
- Have a clear purpose about why you are co-producing
- Know how you will feedback any outcomes and developments
If you would like to talk about this more or would welcome a chat about co-producing in your service or organisation, contact us via Andree Ralph, our Lived Experience Co-ordinator, and we’ll be happy to help.
We, at the West Sussex Safeguarding Adults Board, are still at the beginning of our journey to implement true and effective co-production.
In our 2023/24 Communication and Engagement Strategy we have expressed a commitment to engage "with adults with care and support needs, including those at the centre of safeguarding concerns and enquiries, to ensure that their voice and experiences are heard, and that they are involved in the co-production of resources wherever possible". We are committed to working with service users, and partner organisations such as Changing Futures Sussex, to ensure that co-production is embedded in our work as 'business as usual'.
For more information on today's theme, or any of the themes from this week, visit the Ann Craft Trust website.
This bulletin concludes our daily Safeguarding Adults Week bulletins. We hope that you have found these bulletins useful, and that they will continue to be a helpful resource for you and your organisations. Each of these bulletins will remain published on our Safeguarding Adults Week webpage.
As always, we welcome any feedback you have, so if you have any comments or questions about these bulletins, please contact us: SafeguardingAdultsBoard@westsussex.gov.uk.
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