Ways to engage with our work and our community

As we are coming into spring, we thought it would be helpful to share a reminder of all the ways that you can learn more about co-production, engage in Co-Production Collective and play an active role in our community as well as also share some the improvements on the new website which should make it even easier for you to engage with us.  

Resource Library

Our resource library developed by the Co-Production Collective community, is for everyone to use! It contains all sorts of useful things from a variety of different places and includes webpages, reports, videos, books, journal articles and much more. We have collated this list of resources rather than curated it, and we will continue to add to it and refine the way that the website works over time. So please explore it and find what interests you and if you come across any resources that you think we should add please email coproduction@ucl.ac.uk.

Our blog

The news page on our website has lots of interesting and helpful articles from members of our community and beyond sharing their lessons from co-production. When we have the new version of the website this will be searchable. If you have any idea for a blog or anything you’d like to share with us please contact us on coproduction@ucl.ac.uk.

Social Media

We are currently on X/Twitter and LinkedIn so please engage with us there. As part of our commitment to championing co-production we not only share learnings from ours and other’s co-production projects so if there is anything co-production focused you’d like us to share get in touch on coproduction@ucl.ac.uk.  

CoPro Cuppas

Our Co-Pro Cuppas are an informal chance to connect with others interested in co-production and chat about whatever you fancy over a cuppa. These online sessions on Zoom are very informal and are a great for meeting others interested in co-production to share experiences, get ideas, and learn together. So, whether co-production is something that's new to you or you have been involved in it for a long time we'd love to see you there. We have a Cuppa during the first week of every month and you’re welcome to pop in for some or all of the session, which lasts one and half hours and is usually roughly split into two 45-minute discussion blocks. For accessibility purposes, we generate a live transcript, using a service called Otter AI. The dates for our next three cuppas are as follows:

• Tuesday 5 March at 13.00-14.30 (sold out)
• Monday 8 April 11.30-13.00
• Thursday 2 May 13.00 – 14.30

All can be booked via our events page.

We don’t offer payment for joining a Cuppa, because these focus on networking or personal development rather than contributing to co-creating the Collective (which is the equivalent of ‘work').

Help us co-produce ourselves

There are lots of ways members of our community can get involved in co-producing Co-Production Collective. The amount of time required, and commitment varies according to the size of the task, along with the amount of pay you will receive. You can find out more about what we pay co-producers and how in our payment policy.

Examples of co-producing Co-Production Collective include:

• Filling out a survey or providing input into policies, or documents
• Attending a co-production session (usually lasting between 1.5 – 2 hours)
• Signing up to be on a co-production team from one of our internal projects
• Signing up to be part of an advisory group for the Collective e.g. such as our Communications sub group that advise and support our Communications efforts (including redevelopment of our new website and how we can ensure our communications are accessible) or the working group that supported the development of our Safeguarding Statement with the support of the wider community.

You can currently keep an eye on new opportunities within our Update blogs that we put out in the first week of every month, in our newsletter and on the events page of our website. With the new website there will be a get involved section and current opportunities board so hopefully these will be easier to find and navigate to.

Become a co-producer on paid projects

‍Whenever we are paid to be part of a project, piece of research or deliver training to an organisation we always recruit members of our community to co-produce these with us.

Levels of involvement can range. Examples include, attending a planning meeting and then delivering a co-production talk or training session with other members of the team over a period of one or two months. Or it could take the form a more involved and longer term project that can be several months or even years in the making.

Again you can currently keep an eye on new opportunities within our Update blogs that we put out in the first week of every month, in our newsletter and on the events  page of our website. With the new website there will be a get involved section and current opportunities board so hopefully these will be easier to find and navigate to.

If you are interested in finding about more this and what’s involved contact coproduction@ucl.ac.uk.  

We hope you have found this blog helpful. We are always looking for feedback and to improve what we do so if you have any questions or thoughts about this blog please contact us on coproduction@ucl.ac.uk.

Photo Credit Kaleb Tapp from Unsplash

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