Safeguarding Statement

Co–Production Collective - Safeguarding Statement‍

Purpose

The purpose of this Safeguarding Statement is that all of us, when involved in Co-Production Collective work, are and feel safe.  

What ‘safe’ means for people will be an important discussion point as ground rules are established for co-production activity. For some the focus will about being secure and free from harm for others about being in a decent and supportive setting. For Co-Production Collective it is all those things.  

Being able to work, express ourselves and be creative is at the core of how co-production works. We see that recounting, hearing and understanding our lived experience requires trust about being safe. Therefore, being safe is not an add on or a safety net but is key to every part of co-production. The safeguarding statement, alongside the Collectives’ curiosity for improvement and innovation, is integral to how the values of Co-Production Collective are made real.

Introduction

The Co-Production Collective safeguarding statement brings together our thinking on how co-production can work and ensuring we are all safe. Co-production brings innovation to the results of the work and in the ways of working used to create those results.  We aim to be innovative in how we keep ourselves and all we work with safe.

1. Co-Production Collective is part of UCL (University College London). The University has a comprehensive safeguarding system that the Collective uses which provides an overarching safeguarding policy and procedures.
2. In the first stage of the work to create a safeguarding statement people in the Collective identified some situations where additional safeguarding guidance is required.  This need is because of the nature of co-production and the ambition the Collective has for fulfilling the intent of the values.  The practice of co-production is based on equality and the removal of barriers.  This does require new ways of working and open communication. On occasion, this can reveal various issues where guidance and support are needed together with ways for the Collective to review and develop working methods.
3. There is an opportunity to develop approaches to safeguarding that matches the values and needs of the Co-Production Collective and that can contribute to how co-production practice develops.
4. The Collective works with a wide range of people in many places. Often those people and places are covered by other organisation’s safeguarding systems. There is no intention to duplicate those. There must be clarity about how, when people become aware of safeguarding concerns those concerns are reported into those other systems. We must be wary of assuming that safeguarding concerns are covered and are being taken care of when they are not.
5. There are particular responsibilities for safeguarding of Children and Young People – up to the age of 18. The UCL policy and procedure sets out the responsibilities.

Values of the Co-Production Collective and how they apply to safeguarding.

Having these values is the heart of the Collective but they are worthless unless we make them real through all that we do on co-production. The values and safeguarding are the responsibility of all in the Collective. We all aim to be alive to injustice. There is no one person responsible rather we all should be alert to our task of working to the values and be ready to challenge occasions when the values are not followed or there is a concern about the safety of our activities.

• INCLUSIVE: We proactively promote inclusivity by being equitable in our approach and implement mechanisms to promote inclusive decision making.‍
• TRANSPARENT: We are committed to being open about the work that we do and acknowledge our position of power as individuals and addressing power imbalances.
• EMBRACING OF CHANGE: We challenge the status quo, champion social justice, and welcome new ideas and ways of working.
• KIND: We build mutually beneficial relationships based on empathy, respect, honesty, and trust.
• REFLECTIVE: We embrace ongoing self-reflection and value diversity of knowledge, experience, and perspective.

4. Scope and Coverage (people and places)

This safeguarding statement is about the work of Co-Production Collective. The things where the Collective has direct control. That is:

• Activities organised by the Co-Production Collective.
• Activities that are facilitated by members of staff or people facilitating Co-Production Collective sessions.

For further guidance on safeguarding in circumstances where the Collective is working within or for other organisations see section 6 and Appendix 5.

5. Anticipation (risk assessment)

Planning all Co-Production Collective activities should include a risk assessment process. The aim is not to become ‘risk adverse’ by attempting to create a risk-free experience. Neither would it be right to impose a ‘one size’ fits all requirement inappropriately to all activities. The expectation is that thought is given to anticipating risks, eliminating some, having a plan if some happen and to involve all participants in that process.  We are seeking a balance where known manageable or accepted risks are mitigated to achieve an agreed good. The best way to develop a ‘risk assessment’ is to co-produce it with the people taking part in the project or event. A good way to start that maybe a discussion to consider what ‘safe’ means for people. For some the focus will about being secure and free from harm for others about being in a decent and supportive setting. For the collective it is often all those things.

There are important additional responsibilities for Children and Young People see UCL’s Safeguarding children and adults at risk Policy and Procedure (Staff and Students).

The following points provide suggestions about how you can do a risk assessment for adults and what considerations you need to make:

1. A risk assessment should consider:

• Travel to get to and from workplace or venue.
• Place – access to a venue or room, the room itself, furniture and fittings
• People – is anyone involved likely to harm or upset other?
• Social media (Facebook, Twitter(X) etc) – people sharing things that are then misused.
• Safe working – risks relating to re-traumatising people through recounting passed experience or to those hearing of those experiences. Giving thought to mitigating this risk and providing support should it happen will be an ongoing area of development for the Collective.
• Risk of missed engagement with a person or what they say. Should a person feel dismissed or ignored it will affect how they are able to contribute or add to an existing belief that they have no value. Group facilitators might work in pairs with one keeping a particular watch for missed contributions or this risk might be shared with the group at the start with a request that all participants assist.

2. The Co-Production Collective ways of working will assist in thinking through ways to mitigate risks.

3. No one should feel an expectation to recount difficult lived experiences. There is risk of re-traumatising the individual and be traumatic for some of those listening. We understand that being required to describe a trauma (in some situations time after time) risks re-traumatising. When control is with the person who has experienced trauma whether to recount the events or not is clearly important. With individual control, talking about trauma can be a positive experience.

4. Many public services, research programmes and policy developers have become restrictive in reacting to concerns or suspicions. They do this as a response to shortage of resources and to limit the scope of their work. This defensiveness can cause the missing of indications of abuse. Staff in these organisations speak of a fear of ‘opening a can of worms’ when there are no resources to respond. As a result, there can be blocks were there ought to be openness and curiosity.

5 Recognition of abuse is not static – things that were ignored in the past or where investigation was actively blocked are now more, but not completely, likely to be seen and acted upon.

6. The task is to engaging people in more personal risk assessment. It may be helpful to use these zones   to work out how to set up a positive experience of co-production sessions?

• Comfort zone – In the comfort zone those involved know what will happen and feel secure. In this zone there is no fear of discomfort but not a lot of new learning.
• Stretch zone – In the stretch zone those involved might need to rethink ideas and be open to learning new things. This may be challenging, and involve being with people who have not yet understood the nature of discrimination. This ‘zone’ might be where co-production generally operates.
• Panic (or stress) zone –In the panic (or stress) zone those involved may find the process threatening and pressured and maybe unable to learn due to anxiety (although some like the pressure of deadlines and being put on the spot).

7. We then organise the co-production sessions to match peoples agreed zone. Before an event or project, the risk assessment and the prevention or mitigation plan should be co – produced. There are different expectation around safeguarding for: Adults and Children and Young People (under 18) which can be found in the UCL Safeguarding children and adults at risk Policy and Procedure (Staff and Students).

8. Risk assessment is about avoidable harm. It is important to consider participants as whole people (not only about how their lives are related to a particular co-production project). Our lived experience is multifaceted, and we might have been traumatised and have been affected by social injustice of different types.

9. Social injustice harms people and is not safe. How that injustice is dealt with and corrected demands attention to how we work as a Collective including safeguarding. Using the processes of safeguarding alone will not be enough.

10. People can be traumatised by things that happen to them or that they witness. That trauma can be made worse by how an event is handled by others. This can include failed or poorly managed safeguarding, On occasion people recounting lived experience might be re-traumatised by the memory. How co-production events, social media and calls are organised needs to take account of this risk.

6. Working in other organisations

Co-Production Collective staff and people facilitating Co-Production Collective sessions may be working inside other organisations bringing their experience to co-production tasks. How those people work with the safeguarding policies and procedures of the host organisation needs to be thought through before the project starts. Appendix 5 provides a template for a suggested training and sign off process.

The Co-Production Collective staff and co-producers that are working alone or in a small team within other organisations need to consider their own safe working and have clear routes to raise concerns. Appendix 4 sets out a template to do that.

7. Incident and concern reporting, response, recording and learning

Safeguarding concerns should be recorded. Any person in the Collective can and should be encouraged to do that. That record should be sent to Niccola Hutchinson-Pascal by emailing n.pascal@ucl.ac.uk. This is to assist with understanding the concern and how it was responded to but additionally so that there is a way for the Collective to learn about how safety is achieved.

1. People who abuse can be either strangers to their victim or well known to their them, so it is important to focus on the behaviour and not get confused by assumptions about the person:

• Abuse can be through direct contact and the use of ‘online’ systems.
• The abuser might be a relative, partner, son or daughter, friend or neighbour, a paid or voluntary worker, or a health or social care professional.
• It could be another person who is a peer to the person abused.
• The person may not realise or be in denial that they are abusing and can sometimes be out of character or abuse because of the stress of caring.

2. It is recognised that ‘learning’ not to notice or report abuse because of the threat of disbelief, of retribution, though lack of self-confidence or financial freedom occurs. Not everyone has realistic options to step away from the situation.

3. At the core of safeguarding is trauma however caused. There has been a slow development of understanding or acceptance of some types of abuse (for example the recent understanding about the effects of bullying based on a person’s neuro diversity, or the impact of racist micro aggression and/or sexual harassment).

4. Co-Production Collective is committed to being at the forefront of recognising the experience of people. Co-production relies on us all being able to contribute and feel able to be creative in how we go about this. We do not want to become stalled or fearful of engaging with each other even when some people may not have or use the right language. We all as individuals have our own unique of understanding of language and social cues that may vary depending on any number of factors including our mood, what’s going on in our lives, learning styles and we need to recognise that, so people feel comfortable to learn from each other.

5. Co-Production Collective is part of the UCL that has their own UCL Safeguarding Policy.

8. Review and development of the safeguarding statement

Effective safeguarding requires us to work with rules that are on a range from those that are generally fixed and those that provide guidance. For this to work as we would like requires us to be on a learning journey. That learning will include how to develop and revise our skills on use of discretion, judgement, reasoning and comparing similar situations to best match the situation.  

As we do that, we will want to be sure we are not allowing expedience (i.e., it’s easier – less trouble not to do anything), organisational pressure, assumptions about people, instinct or fear of confrontation to take over. Those not only cause poor safeguarding but obscure scrutiny of what was done. Our learning depends on us being open to challenge, with time to review and improve.

Consideration of the guidance in the safeguarding statement, along with all other developments of co-production working is an ongoing activity of the Collective. We commit to twice a year having a more formal review of the statement to ensure it is responsive to the needs of all in the Collective.

If you would have any questions or concerns about this statement or related to safeguarding, please contact Niccola Hutchinson-Pascal on n.pascal@ucl.ac.uk.