Co-production and Quality Improvement – Camden & Islington Recovery College

By Ksenija Kadic & Anne Prouse

All Camden & Islington (C&I) Recovery College courses are co-produced and co-delivered by a peer tutor (expert by experience) and a C&I Trust staff professional tutor (expert by profession).  We have trained psychologists, social workers, nurses, researchers, and managers to co-produce with us as professional tutors. 

Fewer Trust staff teach with us, relatively speaking, than other UK Recovery Colleges.  Unfortunately, we struggle to have C&I staff released to co-produce with us, especially for longer courses. Over the last five years, the College has grown significantly but we can’t offer all the courses we would like to, as we do not have enough staff tutors. 

C&I staff who co-produce and teach with us tell us they do find it valuable. ‘[It] has taught me a lot and encouraged me to reflect on how I work with people’ and ‘[I now] approach work in a more collaborative way.’

In February 2019, we set up a Quality Improvement (QI) project to explore ways to encourage more C&I staff to co-produce recovery and wellbeing courses with us.

Our aims

• Promote co-production & teaching for personal & professional development
• Transform C&I Trust culture through co-production and recovery model
• Invest in staff skills & knowledge

Our SMART goal

To increase the number of C&I staff teaching at the Recovery College by 20% by October 2019.

Our team

We invited students and C&I staff tutors to join our QI team to co-produce  ideas.   Our team was two students, three C&I tutors and a research manager, led by the College Deputy Manager/Senior Tutor and with a C&I QI Hub member.

We shared our own stories, and discussed why the Recovery College is a place where C&I staff would want to co-produce and teach. We collected stories from C&I staff tutors and student stories on how our co-produced recovery courses had helped them.  We presented our project to C&I leaders and it was well-received.

What happens now

As senior C&I leaders have shown support for our project, we feel confident we will soon be welcoming more C&I Trust staff to co-produce with us.