Learning event reflections: What does a new guide for co-pro look like?
In this blog, Sam Jordan from the Scottish Co-production Network shares some his reflections from the recent learning event exploring the development of a new co-pro guide.
It isn’t always simple. It’s not a straight line. It doesn’t happen overnight.
If there’s one universal about co-production it’s that there’s no one right way of doing it. It’s a process that’s designed to be shaped and developed by the people involved, whatever their role or experience.
So, when we’re trying to develop co-production approaches, would it be helpful for us to think about something that would give us a little steer?
That’s where, we hope, a new ‘Guide for Co-production’ will help. And when we brought SCN members together to explore this idea and offer their insights, we gained new confidence that this is something that’s going to develop into an exciting piece of work.
Origins
The idea of some kind of ‘guide for co-production’ has come from network members themselves, both during the last Co-pro Week and through our new Ideas Clinics.
But we were going into this event at the early stages of a co-production process and certainly had that common sense of the unknown.
As usual, network member brought huge amounts of knowledge and enthusiasm, as well as focused, critical questions and observations that gave us even more to think about.
Setting the scene
In our first session, we asked about what’s working well and what needs improved in your organisation and your practice. These responses helped to set the scene and provide us with a context for why we need some kind of guide.
What’s working well? These are a quick summary of the responses:
Varied approaches.
Enthusiasm and willingness to try.
Overall atmosphere of community engagement.
Accessibility.
Lived experience valued.
Dialogue.
Addressing community need.
And things that might improve?
Investment and leadership
Permission and buy in.
Time and space.
Accountability.
Capacity building.
More training and guidance.
Bravery.
Sustainability of methods.
Diversity of co-pro.
For anyone new to co-production, or with many hours under their belt, these common challenges and opportunities will resonate - and provide some important context for the guide to help us understand where we are with co-pro today.
A guide for co-pro?
In the latter half of the day, we asked people to dig into what they would want to see from a guide itself.
I’d love to be able to offer a summary, but we have so many valuable ideas we haven’t finished analysing it yet! From insights about content, methods, accessibility, and design, we’ve got so much to dig into, and we’ll be back in touch with the network soon to unpack it all.
From the brilliant response we can see that network members have clear and detailed ideas about what they want from a co-pro guide.
Our job is to bring these together in a way that makes sense and allows further deliberation to take place – both online and in person.
Next steps
A key place for this discussion? Co-production Week Scotland 2023. Taking place from 13th November 2023, this will be a chance for further discussion, to hear more about the guide and share your insights into what it might look like.
So, like any co-production process: It isn’t always simple. It’s not a straight line. It doesn’t happen overnight.
But with the knowledge and insights shared by network members so far, we’re well on our way to developing something we hope can support good co-production to happen across Scotland.
You can sign up hear more about Co-production Week Scotland and we hope you’ll be part of the week.
