Continuing our journey to do more co-production: update on the 'Associate Roles' work

Catch up on the latest on our 'Associate roles' work. Vanessa who joined the team at the Collective recently to work on this project shares an update below.

What's the latest?

Here at the Co-Production Collective we have been progressing the ‘Associate roles’ work to understand how this is different from the existing way that members of the Collective community are involved in our work. As the summer comes to a close, we are keen to remain transparent and keep you updated on where we have got to and involved in the process throughout, so here goes…

Two of our co-producers, Mandy and Isaac (who are part of a co-production team working on this project and have been involved from the start), have been busy reviewing the feedback from the 50 or so people who attended 2 workshops each back in June (we actually held 4, 2 sessions repeated as there was so much interest!) plus the additional thoughts from people not in the workshops, and have added their reflections to help us make progress. We’ve also had help from Rachel and Pippa (who have provided project management support for this work and are helping me (Vanessa) learn the ropes as I only recently started working at the Collective (to support the set up of this work). Here we share a summary of these with you, how we have used the feedback to develop our first draft of our ‘working model’, our proposed next steps and key timelines and progress to keep an eye out for!

Why do we need a ‘model’ and 'Associate Roles'?

First, for those who didn’t attend the workshops, or a recap for those who did, a little on the idea behind the programme. Co-Production Collective has gone from strength to strength. In order to meet the growing demand for co-production projects, members of the Collective and core team wanted to explore what it means to embed and champion the principles of co-production on a larger scale. With this expansion in mind, our aims for the co-produced model are to:

1. Do even more to achieve our mission of learning, connecting and championing co-production to achieve lasting change
2. Ensure that we have enough capacity to meet current demand and that the Collective can grow sustainably over time
3. Work with co-producers in a way that aligns with our values and supports them, and the Collective members to grow, learn and develop

This model will supplement the work we are currently doing on the Value of Co-production project and our plans to create a Library of Resources for co-production to expand and demonstrate the broader impact and benefits that collaborative ways of working can have for people, organisations, different sectors and services.

It is envisaged that this co-produced model and accompanying resources will help us to grow whilst keeping our core values in mind. Diversity and inclusion is at the core. By co-developing the ‘ways of working’, we hope it will also be sufficiently flexible to be adopted and adapted as a framework for other organisations to develop sustainable co-production practices embedding lived experience and enhancing impact for more communities.

What’s in a name?

First of all, we know job titles and hierarchies don’t sit well in co-production and this was clear in the input that we have received to date in relation to this work. Consequently, an initial sticking point was naming our new ‘freelance’ role (and the model) while staying true to our values. We mulled over this a lot and settled on ‘co-producers’. Yes, it’s quite simple! To avoid any unnecessary titles and hierarchies we won’t have any! Although ‘partners’ was a popular name, we had concerns about what this means in terms of our existing Collective members, who remain important contributors for the Collective, and potential confusion with the external partners that we work with on some projects.

We’re still working on the role

There is still some work to do to clarify the role, what it is and how this differs from the way Collective members are currently involved, and the types of projects that will be available to work on. However, we agreed that this new co-producer role is for those that may be ready to take their co-production experience and skills a step further. It is envisaged they will take on responsibility for one or more elements of a project with support. These freelance co-producers will represent the Collective and embody our values and principles.

We have been working with individuals in different ways for quite some time and want to respect our community here – so we are working on this! Our hope is that more Collective members will feel encouraged, motivated, supported and enabled to take on these co-producer roles - if not initially, in further waves of recruitment.

Developing the ‘working model’ – all things begin somewhere

In designing the working model, we agreed that we need to keep our goals in mind to:

• Successfully sustain and evolve Co-Production Collective
• Incorporate the Co-Production Collective values in a way that we can monitor and challenge what we are doing
• Provide clarity on how this co-producer role will work with the wider Collective

Diversity and inclusion are at the core of our work therefore, key themes that we want to explore further in this next stage are how we:

• Respond to open, inclusive and fair recruitment challenges
• Build a ‘good’ and supportive culture throughout our Ways of working with the Collective
• Ensure that we offer (and evaluate) the benefits and impact all round

We welcome change and this needs to start somewhere! In this vein, we have considered all the feedback and created a first draft of the ‘working model' - as a PDF or as a as a Word document.

This includes some of the key factors that we think are critical to the success of this co-producer approach and how the model could address these. We are conscious that in summarising into themes, we often lose some of the important detail and difference that everyone has brought to the discussions. This detail is not lost – we will keep checking back as we progress. If you would like to take a look at the detail this is available on the Miro board and Jamboards (links to these outputs from the sessions are at the end of this blog).

As we reflected and debated on the process in the co-production team for this work, it became clear that we needed to recruit a first wave of co-producers for this work – as inclusively and openly as we can. Once onboard, we will co-produce our ‘Ways of working’ together and further develop our benefits and impact evaluation.

The next phase – from March 2023 – will involve piloting the model across projects and opportunities to reassess how the co-produced framework works in practice.

Forward planning and some rough timelines

Our current focus is to co-produce our inclusive and accessible recruitment process, incorporating and building on experiences from our recent recruitment and shared by our Co-Production Collective community. This is our current plan for moving the programme forward…

• Mid September: Look out for the recruitment update, more on the application process and what we think the programme and level of commitment looks like so far!
• Mid-end September: Recruitment will open with detail of the process and opportunities to ask more questions
• Early October: We will kick start the recruitment process and are look forwarding to lots of open conversations
• Mid October: Process of welcoming everyone to the programme begins
• End October: First group session will take place!

How can you get involved at this stage?

We would love to hear your thoughts on:

1. The ‘working model' we have developed for this work - our first draft is currently available to review - as a PDF or as a as a Word document.
2. The discussions to date - if you have any more thoughts please add them to the space titled 'Additional comments' (it is coloured green) on this Miro board.

Please get in touch with Vanessa via email on v.bennett@ucl.ac.uk if you would like to chat further about any of this or you can email the team on coproduction@ucl.ac.uk.

If you want to review the feedback from the previous sessions, take a look at the Miro board and Jamboards by clicking on the following links…

• Session 1 (13th & 15th June)
• Session 2 (28th June)
• Session 2 (30th June)

For information on how to use Miro check out this video or for Jamboard see this short how to guide video.

If you have any access needs and/or require any support, please do contact us via email at coproduction@ucl.ac.uk.

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