Shifting the balance: Co-production and opportunities for a working life

In this piece, Dawn from the Scottish Co-production Network shares her experience of attending this recent conference, and the role that co-production can play in shifting the balance in power around disability and work.

SUSE logo

The Scottish Union of Supported Employment (SUSE) conference was recently held in Stirling, and the Scottish Copro Network was invited to run a workshop on coproduction.

For anyone unfamiliar with SUSE -  “The Scottish Union of Supported Employment (SUSE) is the national representative body for supported employment providers and anyone interested in ensuring that disabled people and those with long-term health conditions, across our country, have the opportunity of a working life.”

The conference was a great day, so many interesting sessions and inputs, looking at the best ways to involve people with Lived and Living Experience of disabled people and those with long-term health conditions to have the support they need to engage in work.

The keynote from Mr Tom Arthur, Minister for Employment and Investment of Scotland set the tone for the day noting Scotland’s commitment to Fair Work First and mitigating welfare reform to ensure a socially just society where we can work to narrow the disability employment gap, by utilising approaches such as hybrid and flexible working practices that are family friendly.

The event also showcased the EASE app which is aimed at supporting disabled people to access the support they need to maintain employment, through online and signposting to local support services, and to monitor their wellbeing and career development. They are currently recruiting app testers and anyone interested in taking part in a focus group – for further details, please go to - https://www.suse.org.uk/what-we-do/current-projects/ease-app/

Keynotes

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The day’s keynotes and inputs were equally inspiring, with Jenny Marshall from Glasgow Centre for Inclusive Living talking about the importance of services created by and with the people with direct experience of needing them, and how coproduction is about power, intentionality and care. Jenny reflected coproduction is slow, and often messy, and that even with the best of intentions it can go wrong, but it’s about learning and improving.

Other sessions and speakers spoke of the need to co-design and coproduce at all stages and levels within an organisation – including recruitment, service design and delivery.

Communication, care and connectivity were key messages from the panel discussion, as well as an acknowledgement and desire to see more community led research to understand some of the key issues that people and organisations are facing, and to back up the data that is there, to assess its accuracy and to have the voices of those most affected by decisions being at the heart of them.

Challenges of annual funding were spoken of, and how that makes service design and coproduction even harder as it often needs more than one financial year to make it happen.

Workshops

The afternoon sessions looked at the interrelatedness of UK and Scottish policy, and what can be done to create more effective commissioning programmes that can be multi-year and flexible, taking note of the time to coproduce, and the need to respond to what is needed.

The afternoon session also addressed the relational nature of coproduction and partnerships, looking at the local employability partnerships, and wider community, voluntary and statutory partnerships that are trying to engage around the funding and networks for supported employment locally.

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Our session looked at coproduction, looking at the definitions of lived and living experience, values and principles of participation, giving practical hints and tips on copro in practice, and how that has been shaped by the Christie Commission, the Scottish policy context, and the National Performance Framework for Scotland.

The session highlighted tools like the VOiCE platform for planning community engagement, as well as the Coproduction Guide, and resources to support the payment of “experts by experience” in coproduction, and the opportunities and challenges organisations can face when trying to start on a copro journey.

It was an excellent day, great networking and connections made and very thought provoking.