Co-Creating an inclusive way to recruit to the Allies Group – Progress to date and how you can get involved in next steps

Hi everyone! I’m Mandy, a member of the Co-Production Collective Allies Group. Thanks so much to everyone who joined us for the co-creation session about recruitment to our Allies group. As always – the richness of constructive ideas was awesome! Nicc and I have read every single post-it note on the jamboard, and all the additional thoughts sent to us afterwards. As you can imagine, it was really hard to sum it all up, so we pulled out the strongest recurring themes and ideas. That doesn’t mean that all the other ideas are lost – they will be taken into account during the process.

These were the main themes that emerged from the co-creation workshop:

• In the true spirit of our values we need to have a choice of application methods so that people can express themselves in a way that they are comfortable with.
• We need to let people know more details about the roles of Allies group members and co-chairs, and what they involve (in terms of time commitment, what people are expected to do etc).
• People want to know what support and training will be available for the roles.
• We need to provide a clearer idea of the function of the Allies group. This will also be explored more as part of our strategy development.
• It will be important to have diversity in the selection panel.
• There was a lot of enthusiasm for the selection process to be informal, co-produced and flexible. A lot of people were keen on a group discussion/chat as part of the process.
• Membership of the Allies group needs to be addressed. There are currently more academics/UCL staff than community members. Diversity in the Allies can be increased by having more community members, but there were also other ideas; e.g. – have visiting guests from charities
• It will be important for Allies group members to be able to advocate for people who are not in the meetings, and to be able to represent the values of the collective.

In an effort to take on board all the great ideas and feedback from the workshop, we are planning to do the following:

• In the Allies group there are currently six UCL/academic members and two community members. We would like this recruitment to increase the community membership to six.
• To co-produce the process of doing this recruitment, we will set up a working group of six people to design the process. This group will look at: information to be given to people interested in joining the Allies, criteria for membership of the Allies, process for choosing a community co-chair and how to apply. Members of the working group will also form the selection panel.
• The working group members will be from the Collective community and in order for it to be a fair process, should consist of people who are not going to apply to be in the Allies Group.
• The wider Collective community will be able to get involved by commenting on documents and ideas.

We have a timeline of proposed stages in the process, starting with setting up the Working Group:

1. Set up the Working Group – Original deadline to express an interest was 17:00 on Thursday 22 June. This deadline has now been extended to 9am Monday 3 July (UK time) to ensure people who read the newsletter to get the chance to apply for this. See below for information on how to do this.
2. Hold the Working Group meetings – July 2023
3. Advertise for applications – early August 2023
4. Hold the recruitment process – mid to late August 2023
5. Appoint new Allies Group members – Sept 2023

How to apply to join the Working Group

We are looking to bring together a diverse group of people with experience of co-production and inclusive recruitment processes. If you would like to apply to be a member of the Working Group please email coproduction@ucl.ac.uk with the following information (only a couple of paragraphs are needed).

Please let us know:

• Who you are? – please share a little bit about you and your co-production and/or inclusive recruitment experience
• Why you are interested in getting involved and what experience you will bring to the group?

Please note: if you are planning to apply to be an Allies Group member you cannot join with Working Group.

If you find it easier, please download this Word document containing these questions and email this back to us.

The deadline for applications is now 9am Monday 3 July UK time.

If you find email difficult, just let us know and we’ll happily organise a phone call to record your application in this way instead or you can send us a WhatsApp voice note to Niccola on 07741 671 200.

‍