Welcome to Co-Production Week 2024! A collaborative way of working close to our hearts.
At Grapevine, our Experts By Experience Co-Production Service offers learning disabled and autistic people opportunities to influence local decision-making and have a say on new services and strategies that have or will have an impact on disabled people.
This involves co-designing, reviewing and evaluating services, as well as supporting the recruitment of local authority and NHS staff, in close conjunction with Warwickshire County Council, Coventry City Council and Coventry and Warwickshire Integrated Care Board.
So this year’s theme is ‘What’s missing?’
How do we move beyond familiar voices, increasing equity and diversity? What is the language of co-production? And what is its impact?
We asked our experts by experience (EbEs), who are paid for their time and expertise on these city-wide and regional projects, what words come to mind when they think of co-production.
They said: Inclusive, Essential, Insightful, Collaborative, Empowering, Representative, Positive, Wonderful.
On Tuesday this week we offered our project worker Sophie Stone’s take on the ‘cake analogy’ to a good reception on social media – comparing different ways to approach making a cake to the different ways of working together to co-produce a service or strategy.
Sophie says: “In a recent training session we offered to our EbEs, I talked through the different ways of working together… educating and informing, consulting, engaging, co-designing and co-producing.
“Then we discussed as a group how these ways of working together can fit under the ‘doing to’, ‘doing for’ or ‘doing with’ categories of co-production.”
- DOING TO (or educating and informing) is when someone shows you how to make a cake. You don’t influence what it looks or tastes like, but you learn how to make a cake
- DOING FOR (or consulting and engaging) is when you help a friend make a cake for someone you care about. You give suggestions on what it should look like… but you don’t make the final decisions on what the finished cake is like
- DOING WITH (or co-designing and co-producing) is when you make a cake in partnership with a friend, deciding what it should look like, taste like and how many tiers it should have. You make all the decisions together.
Sophie says: “All of these ways of working together at different times and in different environments are valid.
“It is really important to be transparent about the nature of the work that you’re doing with people.
“At Grapevine, we’ve created these visuals to help our EbEs understand and identify the way they’re working with people in the health and social care system.
“Understanding the context, developing the skills needed and sharing the power of decision making in order to truly sit in the ‘doing with’ category is a process that takes time to get right.”
To round off our #CoProWeek 2024
We shared what our experts by experience thought was most important about having diverse voices involved in co-production.
They said:
“It feels good to provide a different perspective. I feel appreciated.”
“I want to share my story with people. I have a voice and an inspirational story. I’m a lot more confident now than I used to be!”
“I help to make decisions about who is recruited and I want to find the right people for the job.”
“I like that we are trying to make services better. I try to put my opinion across and I feel like my opinion is important.”
“I feel good that we’re making a difference and changing things for the better.”
Sophie concludes: “It is vital that learning disabled and autistic people are included in co-producing health and social care services.
“In Coventry and Warwickshire, our Experts by Experience Co-Production Service works to make sure they are being listened to and have the power to help shape health and social care systems.
“These quotes from our EbEs outline why it is so important for learning disabled and autistic people to shape the health and social care services that affect them.
“By including a diverse range of people in co-production and ensuring that lesser heard voices are amplified, individuals and systems really benefit.”
About our Experts By Experience Co-Production Service
This project is commissioned by Warwickshire County Council, Coventry City Council and Coventry and Warwickshire Integrated Care Board. The Grapevine team is contactable at ebe@grapevinecovandwarks.org.
It forms part of our #ShiftingPower work in the city and region.