Coproduction is more than a buzzword for charities. I learnt the value of coproduction early in my career. I’m a social worker by profession, and the main ethos I developed is that you are doing your job best when you are lifting the voice of the person you are supporting.
Be that enabling them to design their care plan and desired outcomes from their support, through to working with people to design the types of services they wanted to access to support them to have a life of their choosing.
When I was 19, I supported a woman with learning disabilities. She used to get really distressed when having her teeth brushed; she didn’t have verbal communication, and there was nothing in her support plan to address it.
Over a period of weeks, we tried different approaches to toothbrushing and eventually realised she had sensitive teeth and the cold water on her toothbrush was causing her pain. It was through a series of eliminations that we were able to reduce the distress and use warm water instead.
You can only do coproduction when you take the time to know the person you're supporting and what matters to them. This can be the small daily acts of how to support them with personal care, through to understanding their dreams and aspirations.
I’ve always thought of coproduction on three levels; the first level is working with someone to establish what outcomes they want from the support.
The second level involves including people receiving care and support in designing how they receive that care; that could involve people being on interview panels to decide who should support them. I’ve seen and delivered this level of coproduction throughout my career.
What I’ve seen less of is a third level of coproduction, which is where those in receipt of support shape the organisational strategy and have shared power in decision making, and that’s what we’re ambitious to achieve with our new strategy, Big Lives.
Leaving the ladder down
The four principles of coproduction: equality, diversity, accessibility and reciprocity are embedded in many aspects of my life. I am a qualified coach, and coaching and mentoring sessions are successful when there is a power-sharing dynamic, an aspect which is essential to coproduction.
Leading a charity is a demanding and at times tough responsibility. I’ve had moments of doubt, but I've never experienced imposter syndrome. Throughout my career, I’ve had wonderful cheerleaders in my life, telling me to apply for the promotion and believing fully that I can do the job.
Back when I returned from maternity leave, a senior colleague reached out and offered to mentor me. At the time, I didn’t even know what a mentor was, but it was the first step to much later becoming a coach myself.
I would cite being mentored and coached as the single biggest driver for enabling me to build my career. I find real joy in sitting down with women and supporting them to think about going for the next promotion. Anyone who asks me for a career conversation, I've always prioritised it.
Tricky and sticky is not a bad thing
There is a huge amount of evidence that if you embed coproduction into projects, you get better outcomes. I can point to the Social Care Institute for Excellence's evaluation of the work we did in Oxfordshire, when I was a director of social services, showing people are more empowered and more engaged through coproduction.
I would say, though, when you're doing coproduction well, it can be tricky and difficult and sticky. I think back to when we set up a coproduction board in Oxfordshire, which I co-chaired with a mum of a son with learning disabilities. And over time, that group grew in confidence to the point where they started challenging me about why they weren't being paid the same hourly rate as my deputy director or me.
I would tell others that true coproduction is moving forward when it's challenging because, for everyone, the more empowered people get, the more they push and probe when circumstances simply aren't good enough. And as a leader, you need that.
At United Response, we are already ensuring the people we support are on recruitment panels and can feed into leadership decisions, but there is always more to do and a need to measure the difference that is being made. To do this we will gather qualitative and quantitative feedback through surveys and monitoring and evaluating key metrics; from coproduced activities, influenced service design and quality practice.
As part of our commitment to strengthening coproduction, we’ve partnered with Gloriously Ordinary to support a long-term programme of work focused on culture, language and meaningful involvement. The programme will help us build a more consistent approach to coproduction and strengthen how people we support, and families influence decisions across the organisation.
I am committed to keep working with people who help ensure we create space to deliver our ambition of being the most coproduced charity in the UK.
