Co-production: more than storytelling

By Chloe Juliette, Expert-by-experience and consultant at the consultancy Traverse.  

Despite being a care-experienced consultant and researcher, I have still found myself, at times, feeling like a young foster kid; just as traumatised and lost as I ever was and staring into the abyss of the ever-daunting question: “How do we make the system better?” I am often overwhelmed by the amount of information I’ve had to take in and consider, though organisations like SCIE do a great job at providing an open and safe space to do so. 

I have felt sometimes awkward, and unsure. As a confident 28 year old, no longer burdened by the system that I was once trapped in, it surprises me that I still regress so much; but I’m very glad that I still vividly experience what it is I’m asking of, say participants at deliberative events, when I put challenging issues and big questions on the table as a facilitator. 

The most interesting thought streams I had at a recent co-production event were threefold:

• I wonder if the current culture allows social workers to say they’re struggling, or they feel they’ve made a mistake? 
• Principles and regulations are often broad, but how can you measure something non-specific? 
• There should be something in their mandatory reflective practice on implicit bias and identifying and mitigating those biases. 

Co-production isn’t just getting people in to tell their story, as whilst that can be valuable it can also give a narrow view of only a small amount of experiences; and if co-production is to be what it says it is, then service users should be coproducing the exams, delivering assessments, and providing mentoring - all of it. Otherwise it’s not partnership, and we’re in danger of it simply being another exercise in well-meaning tokenism - which ultimately furthers inequality.  

There’s something really crucial in power dynamics and equality that I’ve been thinking about for years on and off. Language and accessibility of course plays into this: How can people engage with something they can’t understand because it’s full of jargon or there’s too much of it to digest? How can anyone challenge something they don’t understand or have access to?  

We need an open learning culture of reflective practice and an environment which values relationships and growth. In the words of leadership and governance specialist Dr Sue Goss: “If we want a more humane system then we need to recognise that the interaction between the public and the system happens on the front-line.” If that’s true, perhaps we should treat the front-line more humanely - then perhaps it will filter through.