July 4, 2022
Nothing is permanent except change, the old saying goes. This applies especially for July, the peak of butterfly season – you may notice more of them as most will emerge at this time. For us too, July brings plenty of opportunities to rise to the occasion. Change is not always easy, perhaps because there is no right way to go about it, everyone needs to find their own way. Below, we are sharing how our team is taking on new challenges, while celebrating each milestone as we go along.
It’s finally here, Co-Production Week 2022 kicks off this week! You can meet us in real life at events through the week. Some of our staff members (Chloe and Niccola) and lots of our co-production community will be attending in person on 5 July at the Not Another Co-production Festival. Later this week, Niccola will be joined by co-producers Anthony and Maddie on 7 July at the People’s Voice Media Community Reporter Conference 2022, also in Manchester. Look out for a blog sharing the learning and highlights from these events soon.
There are many ways to celebrate this week, without even leaving your home. Have a look at the introductory film recorded by John Evans, Disability Rights and Diversity Consultant, join a webinar on 5 July, or listen in on co-production conversations through podcasts released to mark the occasion. Artist and associate at Co-production Works, Jolie Goodman has published a blog about co-producing with residents and housing providers, while Patrick Wood, Chair of the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) Co-production Network, shared a piece about learning from experience. We will be sharing opportunities all week on our Twitter page, so be sure to follow us if you use the platform.
July is already off to a great start for us, kicking off the month with a Co-Pro Cuppa this afternoon, chatting about making change. Whether it is moving into a new role, moving away from tokenistic lived experience representation, or moving closer to co-production instead of using service users, there are no simple answers. But having a space to discuss these issues openly is a good start. Hope you can join us to continue the conversation at our next Cuppa session on 2 August.
Following on from the Associate model workshops we held in June, our team will be working on a blog this month to will share back on the insights you all shared with us. Co-creating our Journey of Change continues as well – after taking the time to digest all the input from previous months’ sessions, we will share back with you over the summer.
Elsewhere this month, Niccola will be leading a session about co-production for the Royal Free London and attending the Health Foundation Inclusion Panel Strategy Group. Together with Rory, Niccola will also be delivering a Health of the Public co-production in research training session this month for UCL staff and students.
Lots of change happening in our team this month, even though we’re still processing the changes from June (if you have not already, we highly recommend reading Lizzie’s new blog reflecting these changes and on our core values). This month, we are sad and happy to announce that Rory will be leaving us to take up a new role. She will share more about this with you later this month, but for now the main point is that this isn’t really a goodbye - once a co-producer, always a co-producer. At the same time, we’re excited to welcome a new STEP trainee to our team in the second half of this month and looking forward to our next Co-Pro Cuppa where you can all meet them!
To stay in touch with the latest news from us, make sure you’re signed up to our newsletter and following us on Twitter to hear it first. We hope to see you, hear from you or speak to you soon! As ever, if you have any questions or suggestions for us, please get in touch at coproduction@ucl.ac.uk
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