This week is Co-production Week: 29 June – 3 July 2026
Co-production Week is a celebration of the power of co-production to design and develop better ways of doing things in social care.
This year’s theme is ‘Care Equity’.
What is Co-production?
Co-production is an approach where an organisation such as Grace Eyre works together as equal partners with the people it supports, their families and professionals. They design, plan, deliver and review services and products.
Using co-production and striving to become a user-led organisation is very important to Grace Eyre.
How we do co-production at Grace Eyre
Grace Eyre believes that people with a learning disability and autistic people should be able to live the lives they choose and have control over decisions that affect them. We believe people are experts in their own lives.
We aim to:
- Use co‑production across all of Grace Eyre
- Make sure people have real power, not just a say
- Improve the quality of support
- Make co‑production “normal”
- Follow the law and good practice.
There is also a specific team in our charity called Our Voices. Our Voices supports autistic people and people with a learning disability to have their voices heard and to be involved in Grace Eyre and the wider community.
Cleo Dibb, Our Voices Manager, said:
“Our Voices is a co-produced department at Grace Eyre. We help support the rest of the organisation to know why sharing power and responsibility when making decisions about our lives and services is so important. Our main goal is for people to be in charge of their own lives and be part of decision-making in all areas of the organisation.”
Margaret Wood, Our Voices Project Worker, said:
“Co-production is important so that everyone has their voices heard. My personal experience is that I want my voice to be heard and I want other peoples voice to be heard even if they can’t speak.”
Examples of co-production at Grace Eyre
Strategy and Governance:
- Trustees with and without a disability make decisions together
- Directors work with people we support to shape strategy.
Design of our services:
- People we support help design services
- They are involved in planning, delivery, and monitoring
- They help write tenders for services they want.
Recruitment:
People we support help:
- Write job descriptions
- Write job adverts
- Interview staff and Shared Lives carers
- Choose who is hired.
Policies and Procedures:
- People we support help write policies
- We also include legal and best practice advice in policy.
Quality Checking:
- People we support help check services
- They check if services are good.
Communication:
People we support help create:
- Marketing materials
- Campaigns
- Messages shared publicly.
Training:
- People we support help decide what training is needed
- People with lived experience help deliver training
- This includes disability training like Oliver McGowan Training.
Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training in Learning Disability and Autism
David and Robert are our Oliver McGowan Experts with Lived Experience Co-trainers.
The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training in Learning Disability and Autism is the Government’s preferred and recommended training for health and social care staff to undertake. The training aims to provide the social care and health workforce with the right skills and knowledge to provide safe, compassionate, and informed care to autistic people and people with a learning disability.
David and Robert work alongside Alastair, our Learning & Development Coordinator and Oliver McGowan Lead Trainer, to deliver the training to all Grace Eyre staff. We have also recently employed 15 additional freelance co-trainers with lived experience and other facilitators. We’re in the process of training all our new staff at the moment and are looking forward to offering this training externally later this year. Watch this space for more details coming soon!
Co-production in the community
Purple Productions is Grace Eyre’s Events Team. They produce events for and by people with a learning disability and autistic people.
Purple Productions is putting on events our community wants.
These include running their own events in new venues, having autonomy over their own roles, becoming part of Brighton Fringe, expanding events into West Sussex and organising another summer festival, Neurodiverse-city, this August.
Get Involved
We are looking for volunteers to join our Grace Eyre Ambassadors Team in Brighton & Hove.
The main focus of the Ambassadors’ work is increasing self-advocacy, which means people with learning disabilities and autistic people speaking out about what is important to them. Ambassadors receive training to help them carry out their role.
This is a voluntary role for people with a learning disability and/or autistic people and individuals who receive support from Adult social care services.
You must be able to commit to attending at least 2 meetings per month.
Find out more about becoming a Grace Eyre Ambassador
Questions?
If you have any queries about co-production at Grace Eyre or you’d like to enquire about training, please contact Cleo Dibb, Our Voices Head of Service, at cdibb@grace-eyre.org.