September 15, 2023
September's arrival brings with it a refreshing change of season. As we bask in what we hope won’t be the final rays of sunshine, we're excited to share what we have been up to as a community, and a glimpse into upcoming opportunities that are on the horizon.
We are helping to facilitate two sessions with GO Hildas, which is a newly developed co-production group for Gynaecological Oncology in the West Midlands. Our sessions were aimed at supporting them to develop as a network. You can learn more about GO Hildas’ mission and find out how to become a member on their website. We are also running training sessions for the West Midlands Perinatal network which is part of Birmingham Women’s & Children’s NHS FT, we and will be delivering several sessions over the next couple of months. If you are based in the West Midlands and interested in getting involved please email us on coproduction@ucl.ac.uk.
The last session of the 'Commissioning with Communities' programme that we have been delivering in partnership with Ideas Alliance and Collaborate CIC took place. - The role of commissioning and the people who do it (commissioners) according to the NHS ‘is the continual process of planning, agreeing and monitoring services’. The programme aimed to give commissioners an understanding of how to work in a co-productive way with the communities they serve to ensure that their communities shape services that are commissioned.
One participant said "I enjoyed the training & coming together very much & feel inspired to be brave as a commissioner to bring service users as partners to the table to make decisions that will influence services that matter to them." Its great to see the programme is already a difference.
George hosted the first meeting of the communications sub group. At the meeting the agreed that their remit would be supporting the development of our website and advising us on how best to promote what we do with the resources we have, in a way that always has the user experience in mind.
We built on these discussions at our second meeting today where we also started to think about how to develop our website to better reflect what we offer and make it easier for people to find ways to get involved in what we do. We also reviewed our current communications channels (like the website, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Newsletter etc) bearing in mind feedback from the End of Year Survey. – We will keep you informed of development of our website and opportunities for you to provide input into this. If you have any feedback on our website in the meantime, please contact coproduction@ucl.ac.uk.
As you may have read in our blog in June we are currently are recruiting six people to join our Allies Group using a recruitment process designed by our Allies Working group. The group set about trying to make the recruitment process as inclusive and accessible as possible, by offering multiple ways to apply, as well as making the process anonymous. Applications closed on 5 September, and we had a great a great response, so thank you to all of you who applied. If you would like to read more about this process you can read our blog which is also available as an audio file version. We aim to have the new members recruited by mid-October so once they are, we will let you know who they are.
Over August the team co-producing Measuring Success in Co-production: Learning by Doing Programme & Funding opportunity were busy preparing the application pack and launch which happened last week.
This programme is open to all who share our passion for mental health, wellbeing, or climate change initiatives. You can read more about it including how to apply in this blog. For those of you who couldn’t make the launch but are interested in applying we will be sharing the main video from the event along with a link to the presentation and other follow up information this week.
There will also be an opportunity to take part in our next event in this programme on 17 October which will give you an opportunity to network and event with others who are interested in applying. More details including how to book coming soon.
This month, we are entering into the final phase of co- creating our strategy. In our fourth session that happened today, we focused on shaping our ambitions for the next 3-5 years and outlining how we plan to achieve them. This follows on from the values session we held in July. Thanks to all of you who gave your input into the values. We used this inform our session and the development of our strategy. You can read about our previous sessions in this blog.
Once the workshop has taken place we will share a draft of our strategy in late September so that we can finalise this and launch it in time for our 3rd birthday celebrations on 31 October.
Our 3rd birthday is coming up at the end of October. To celebrate we’re having an online get together on 31 October 12.00-13.30 (UK time) to launch our new strategy, update you on some up-coming co-creation projects, and share some reflections together. We look forward to celebrating with you then. We are looking for two people to get involved in further shaping and delivering our birthday celebration with us. This would involve attending one meeting before the birthday event and co-facilitating the event with us. If you would like to get involved, please email: coproduction@ucl.ac.uk Find out more and book on our events page.
Our next Co-Pro Cuppas will take place on Tuesday 3 October at 10.00-11.30 and 1 November at 2 pm. You can find out more and sign up via the events page on our website.
If you have any questions or would like to know more about our work, please get in contact by emailing us on coproduction@ucl.ac.uk
Interested in finding out more or exploring how we could work together?
Co-Produce with us