Fulfilling Lives Programme: Co-production every time

By Stacey Murton, Opportunity Nottingham 

Expert Citizens and Beneficiary Ambassadors

Across the country, 12 Big Lottery-funded Fulfilling Lives Programmes are working to create system change and improve services for people with multiple needs. And co-production is playing a key role.  

“Co-production is about working together, taking risks together, being responsible together, and solving problems together” – this quote is taken directly from three co-production workers at the Fulfilling Lives WY-FI project, which has its own network dedicated to co-produced work.

The FulfillingLives South East Project has a team of peer researchers (volunteers and paid staff with lived experience), who interview clients once a year, to gather feedback about the project. The peer researchers advised that questions weren’t clear, and the quality of feedback was variable. Therefore, the project decided to co-produce a new version of the survey, with everyone’s input. A new set of questions were drafted, reflecting everyone’s views, and covering a range of issues. The peer researchers were then asked about how to word the questions in a way that was clear, approachable and non-stigmatising.

The feedback from clients, interviewers and staff was very positive. The interviewers feel more confident conducting a survey they helped to create. From a research perspective, the depth and quality of information is much improved, and more useful to a wider range of people within the organisation.

At Opportunity Nottingham, a key piece of fully co-produced work is The Pledge. It focuses on the improvement of beneficiary and staff experiences across all services. A number of workshops and meetings with Expert Citizens and service staff took place in order to create The Pledge. It considers what Beneficiaries would like from a service, how they would like to be treated, and they will engage with services and treat service staff. At its core are honesty, understanding and belief. The aim is that The Pledge will be adopted by other services in Nottingham, and set a level of service delivery and interaction that everyone can work towards.

For the Fulfilling Lives Programme, co-production isn’t just a buzzword to throw into articles and tenders. Co-production means real change.

It means listening to all voices around the table.

It means valuing lived experience and being respectful of different perspectives.

It means co-creating something and educating each other.

It means rebalancing the power structure; enabling people who have ‘walked the walk’ to do some talking.