It’s National Co-production Week!
According to the social care institute for excellence, the definition of co-production is about working in equal partnership with people using services, carers, families and other citizens. Co-production offers the chance to transform social care and health provision to a model that offers people real choice and control.
Or put simply,
co-production means services working together with people who use services and carers.
The social care institute for excellence have out together an easy read document about what it is and how to do it.
At Grace Eyre, our mission is to deliver Our Charter which was created by people with learning disabilities and/or autism and used to design deliver and monitor services to ensure they were delivering what people wanted and needed.
Our Charter is about people living their lives in the way they want to, getting good support from kind and friendly people: people want: to be listened to; have access to housing; be part of their community; have strong and supported relationships; have jobs; travel around; try new things and to be healthy.
As part of co-production week we’d like to share the history of Our Voices with you. Originally set up in 2011 as the service user involvement group, this group of people with learning disabilities met up in a friendly and informal environment to talk about Grace Eyre services. It was decided that people with learning disabilities and/or autism needed to be included in all decisions are Grace Eyre.
Our Voices Manager, Cleo Dibb, says about co-production:
‘To achieve people’s rights, choice and control over their lives, people who use our services should also have a say in the running of these services. This is where co-production comes in.
Co-production is the equal participation of people with Learning Disabilities and/or autism, parents, carers and professionals in designing, delivering and monitoring these services. This dissolves the power dichotomy that often exists between service provider and service user. It creates a level playing field in which everyone gets to equally participate. It respects that the people who know best about how to be supported are the people receiving that support.’
Take a look at Our Voices timeline. We are excited that you are on this journey with Our Voices!
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- The group was formed.
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- 8 people Grace Eyre supported were trained to assess service quality inside and outside of Grace Eyre. The project was called ‘i check’.
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- It was decided in Our Plan (our 5 year strategic plan) that people with learning disabilities and/or autism would lead the way.
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- A team of Ambassadors was created to advise Grace Eyre.
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- The service user involvement group became Our Voices and spoke to people with learning disabilities about what they wanted from Grace Eyre services. From this, Our Charter was born. It was used to design, deliver and monitor services to ensure they were delivering what people wanted and needed.
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- The Purple Clubhouse was started by the Ambassadors and the Purple Clubhouse committee. It provided a more informal setting for people to discuss what they wanted from the services they received.
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- Kirsty Pentecost and Chris Rider became our first Grace Eyre trustees with a learning disability and people with learning disabilities and/or autism were involved in membership, forums, advisory groups, campaigns and risk committees.
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- Cleo Dibb became Manager of Our Voices, joining 9 Ambassadors and 5 Purple Clubhouse committee members.
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- Ambassador meetings took place across Sussex and in London.
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- Active Lives Forum was restarted and created the Easy Read Drop-in Group. Our Voices spoke with 113 people with learning disabilities and/or autism who updated Our Charter which informed the basis of Our Plan 2020-2025.
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- There are now 16 Ambassadors, 2 staff members and 2 trustees who make up Our Voices.
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- Recruiting more people with a learning disability and/or autism with 12 new jobs being supported in 2021; one of these jobs is recruiting a director with a learning disability for the first time.