Our next steps in becoming an anti-racist community

Thanks to all of you who responded to our blog about what it would mean for Co-Production Collective to be an anti-racist community and provided your thoughts on how we could take this forward. Whilst people have had different views on how we could go about it, everyone we have chatted with so far has felt that the first step is to find an external facilitator who can support us to create a ‘safe space’ to have discussions on what this means in practice. What we mean by this is a way to have honest discussions where people feel comfortable to openly ask questions and not be judged for them, as long as they ask them in a way that is respectful to those taking part in the conversation. Some people we spoke to had experience of being in training sessions about anti racism where there was no space for participants to openly share and ask questions so that they could learn why things they say may be seen as microaggressions or racist for fear of being judged, and it was felt by some that this exacerbated the issues. Because as a result, these participants then kept these views to themselves and other people who ‘thought like them’ and never learnt why they may be seen as racist and offensive to others.

People have told us that they want the facilitated discussions to look at what being an affective ally means within the context of co-production and how we could create this in practice within Co-Production Collective. They also want to learn how to appropriately respond to any microaggressions that happen during our work together as a community as well as what else this means in practice.

We have already had several recommendations for people who are skilled at facilitating these discussions. If there is anyone you would like to recommend though this would be great, please email us on coproduction@ucl.ac.uk

Another aspect of becoming an anti-racist community that has been raised is how we can work to remove to barriers to people from different communities joining the Collective. To understand what these barriers are it was agreed that we should conduct a survey of Co-Production Collective members to understand more about them, how they found out about the Collective, why they joined, what they get out of being part of the Collective. As well as if there is anything that prevents them, or anyone they know being more active in the Collective. This idea was mentioned in our previous blog, and we are now starting to work on this, with the help of several members of our community and the group of people who kindly came forward to help shape our work on being an anti-racist community. More on this coming soon.

We have also started a collection of resources (including, blogs, videos, books etc) in our Library of Resources. It is made up of recommendations from members of our community and is where people can learn about what it means to be anti-racist so, if you have any suggestions for this please let us know via email on coproduction@ucl.ac.uk or by completing our anonymous form. We are aware that you need to buy some of the books on the reading list (if they are not available at your local library), so if you would like to borrow a copy please just ask by emailing us.

From initiating these discussions, conducting the research and sharing resources, we hope to start to shape how we can be anti-racist community. This isn’t something that will happen overnight, but we are committed for the long-term. If you have any further thoughts on this, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us via email on coproduction@ucl.ac.uk or by completing our anonymous form. Thank you!

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